Interesting. I always wondered why Apple seemed to advertize video on the iPad. I thought to myself, "you can't play a DVD on it......and who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
The streaming from a server of some sort makes more sense.
Note that you still have to (somehow) load the movie onto your computer in order to stream it using these applications. Thankfully, this is a fairly simple task using "Handbrake". It can even break the encryption on DVDs if you happen to have VLC installed on the same computer. I have a few hundred of my own movies loaded into iTunes in "m4v" format. Many of them take up less than 1 GB of space in spite of the fact that they look great when streamed via AppleTV to my bigscreen. (I originally thought that that level of compression would cause significant quality degredation.) Because of this, we can fit quite a few movies on both of our 64GB iPads. Perhaps you have never experienced this process, so you didn't really understand how simple and space efficient it is.
Until now, I hadn't heard of "StreamToMe", and I'm definitely going to get it along with the associated server software. Meanwhile, my family has been doing a great deal of movie watching while we travel (road or plane trips). Before we go on such a trip, our daughters drag the movies they want into specific playlists identified for the purpose, and I hook up the iPads, which automatically sync the movies of their choices for our impending trip. It is already a great travel companion. Now, with these streaming apps, we can also have remote access to our entire library from our hotel rooms or our relatives homes (assuming they have WiFi). Even greater! (Thanks, Dick.)
So now, reviewing your question...
"who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
This is what people want to buy. Not what they are buying.
But I think MacRulez still raises a good point. Want to buy is sometimes influenced by what is familiar and available. Given that the Playbook, Tab, etc are not yet in stores for the general public to see and know it exists, it's not really a shock that they want to buy an iPad.
Once they see the other two 'in the flesh' it is possible that the numbers will come up. Perhaps not hugely but I could see Apple's lead dropping down to more like 60% once all these other 'amazing' tablets are out. But 60% while some 6-7 other items share the other 40% still isn't shabby. Not to mention that while a result of being the only product on the market, this overwhelming lead is a dangerous territory anti-trust wise. It would actually benefit Apple legally to lose a little market share. They are still making bank hand over fist.
Let's also keep in mind that this is 3100 folks, gathered from who knows. And looking at other sources they are more than willing to admit that their results don't reflect the whole. So it's likely not a well formed population sample and was done by one of those magazine subscriber, web site members or joe on the street coming out of best buy methods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I thought they linked to articles of others stating that the iPad has limited netbook sales this year.
True, there have been tons of articles. And it is plausible that percent wise, netbook sales have gone down as the ipad captures the market that didn't see the point in a netbook or subsize notebook for whatever reason.
What would be interesting is to see how netbook sales are affected if you toss the Macbook Air into the mix, cause regardless of what Apple might say, it is a netbook, even in the 'it's a sub size notebook with lower performance' form that pretty much every netbook has been guilty of.
Besides form factor there are other considerations people have when choosing to buy a computer.
1. There are varying needs i.e. casual computing vs. business/scientific/academic
2. There are various price points that influence purchasing decisions
3. There is software compatibility factors as well ( some applications have OS exclusivity )
Variety is good and a single product cannot fit everyones needs. I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
Have you seen the tiny boxes HP makes to do that? They are basically drive bays and IO for storing and serving media. I've only glanced at them.
I think a cheap netbook (I'm guessing they will start showing up for $50 on the used market) would make a great media and print server. They should be easier to set up and a lot more flexible than the dedicated boxes. I never did get my print server working
... I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
But, would you give up your MBPro for a MBAir?
Quite likely, I think, and you fit into the relatively small category of people who actually need a mobile desktop experience. Most people don't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
... That’s interesting. Desktop sales have been declining and notebook sales have been on the rise. I wonder if the iPad is showing it’s first signs of people buying it over a notebook and possibly the anecdotal trend of people buying a desktop as their stationary computing needs and iPad for their satellite computing needs, instead of having a single notebook for all computing needs.
I think this is the computing model of the future (and it will be the same with or without cloud): fixed workstations plus satellite devices. Satellite devices may be, depending on need, tablets or ultralight laptops, but tablets will be more prevalent. (Smartphones also serve as satellite devices, but are, and will remain, constrained in functionality and usability vs. tablets and UL laptops.)
Although, the article yesterday re NFC+fixed workstations points to another possible scenario where your "satellite device" is merely a repository, and the computing power is provided by a fixed workstation. This is further in the future, though, and depends on the ubiquity of fixed workstations supporting this functionality.
EDIT: Note that this NFC+fixed workstation mode of computing is still part of the Star Trek model that everyone, knowingly or not, is aiming for. Sometimes they carried around little data modules that they could just plug into any available computer to access and work with, and they always had exactly the tools they needed available.
Quite likely, I think, and you fit into the relatively small category of people who actually need a mobile desktop experience. Most people don't.
Not sure. I don't know that much about MBA. Can you run Parallels? I need to manage Windows servers sometimes. That is what I like about Macs. You have full UNIX, plus Windows, plus OS X desktop environment. Totally flexible and powerful solution and the weight of MBP isn't that much of a burden for me.
True, there have been tons of articles. And it is plausible that percent wise, netbook sales have gone down as the ipad captures the market that didn't see the point in a netbook or subsize notebook for whatever reason.
At this point the causation is speculative, though too coincidental to seem unlikely. We?ll have to see some real numbers and a long term trend to really know for sure. Playing devil?s advocate, it could be the economy is turning around so people are buying cheap notebooks over netbooks, or realizing that they get a lot more bang for their buck with a $400 notebook.
Quote:
What would be interesting is to see how netbook sales are affected if you toss the Macbook Air into the mix, cause regardless of what Apple might say, it is a netbook, even in the 'it's a sub size notebook with lower performance' form that pretty much every netbook has been guilty of.
I completely disagree. Netbooks are a low cost and small notebook form factor that came about specifically because of the Intel Atom and other such chips. The MacBook Air, Dell Adamo, Voodoo Envy and other ultra-portable notebooks are not netbooks.
The MacBook Air performs higher than cheap notebooks and far above any netbook on the market. It uses a C2D CPU and Nvidia IGP that are more powerful than most cheap notebooks and cost more, on their own, than most netbooks.
Interesting. I always wondered why Apple seemed to advertize video on the iPad. I thought to myself, "you can't play a DVD on it......and who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
The streaming from a server of some sort makes more sense.
Well:
1) In order to stream from a server, the video (DVD, etc.) has to reside on the server.
2) You can download videos to an iPad or stream them
3) You can sync any videos you have on your computer (we have 500) to your iPad.
So there are lots of ways to get content.
Also, it is fairly easy to write a server app for Mac OS X to stream to an iPhone or iPad.
If you are really lazy, you don't really need a streaming server on the computer. The iPad app just needs to "play" content from a remote URL, e.g. www.somesite.com/myVideo.mov.
To see what I mean, get the URL of any movie and enter it into Mobile Safari. Mobile Safari is just an app that can play a movie (in addition to surfing the web).
Not sure. I don't know that much about MBA. Can you run Parallels? I need to manage Windows servers sometimes. That is what I like about Macs. You have full UNIX, plus Windows, plus OS X desktop environment. Totally flexible and powerful solution and the weight of MBP isn't that much of a burden for me.
Yes, any of the MBAs can do Parallels well. They all have Intel VT. You?ll want the 4GB, and depending on your workload they may not offer the right HW for your needs, but for the casual use of VMWare or Parallels for some esoteric app or checking how a webpage renders you should be fine.
I agree that netbooks, themselves, have contributed to their demise. They've long been underpowered, and cries for more powerful systems at reasonable prices have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Then, they run either XP or Win 7 Starter which is not truly optimized for such low powered machines. Then there is the issue of the crappy hardware...
iPad is solid built, designed with purpose from the ground up, and plenty zippy. There is an expectation of quality from an Apple product, and it gets delivered with every product they make. The public has faith in what Apple sells them. That goes a long way.
I too am skeptical that netbook sales are being heavily influenced by iPad sales.
Certainly there are many factors involved in the decline of netbooks. But in case you haven't noticed, while the Great Republican Recession is over TECHNICALLY (i.e. economy is no longer shrinking) the reality is a lot more grim in terms of any real recovery. So people are not turning away from them because they are so much richer now.
A drop from 24% to 14% (10 points) is a 42% drop, that is huge. People must be looking at alternatives for whatever reasons. Upscaling or moving over to iPad.
It would have been interesting to see actual sales figures so we can see what numbers we are talking about. How many units of netbooks and how many units of iPads. Then we could see the comparison. One thing is sure, someone is not too likely to buy both a netbook and an iPad.
Besides form factor there are other considerations people have when choosing to buy a computer.
1. There are varying needs i.e. casual computing vs. business/scientific/academic
2. There are various price points that influence purchasing decisions
3. There is software compatibility factors as well ( some applications have OS exclusivity )
Variety is good and a single product cannot fit everyones needs. I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
When I moved from BBerry to iPhone I stopped taking my laptop everywhere, I can VPN to my work & provide full support via RDP & VNC (though painful on tiny screen). With the iPad this is even more possible & is actually not a frustrating trade off at all. Now VMWare just announced RDC client app coming to iPad that gives users a true iPad thin client. I am at a place now where I am seriously considering moving to iMac + iPad vs MBPro for next config, especially since I can now use iTap VNC to remote into all our Mac systems.
If you really examine the multitude of apps available for iPad I think you will find it actually lacks very little now in the way of network troubleshooting. Scany is great network scanning tool, WifiTrak is good tool for scanning available wifi networks. There are RDP, VNC, & SSH apps galore. There are office apps like quickoffice or the iWork apps. You can organize PDFs in iBook app, do markups & bookmark your reading. There are actually even a few things an iPad can do that I wish my Mac could. The more time I spend actually working with iPads at my work the more I'm finding I'm not so in love with a full sized, full featured laptop. Crazy part is I have a 13" MB & it is starting to feel too big & clunky!
Note that you still have to (somehow) load the movie onto your computer in order to stream it using these applications. Thankfully, this is a fairly simple task using "Handbrake". It can even break the encryption on DVDs if you happen to have VLC installed on the same computer. I have a few hundred of my own movies loaded into iTunes in "m4v" format. Many of them take up less than 1 GB of space in spite of the fact that they look great when streamed via AppleTV to my bigscreen. (I originally thought that that level of compression would cause significant quality degredation.) Because of this, we can fit quite a few movies on both of our 64GB iPads. Perhaps you have never experienced this process, so you didn't really understand how simple and space efficient it is.
Until now, I hadn't heard of "StreamToMe", and I'm definitely going to get it along with the associated server software. Meanwhile, my family has been doing a great deal of movie watching while we travel (road or plane trips). Before we go on such a trip, our daughters drag the movies they want into specific playlists identified for the purpose, and I hook up the iPads, which automatically sync the movies of their choices for our impending trip. It is already a great travel companion. Now, with these streaming apps, we can also have remote access to our entire library from our hotel rooms or our relatives homes (assuming they have WiFi). Even greater! (Thanks, Dick.)
So now, reviewing your question...
"who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
... the answer is (emphatically) ME!
Thompson
I have to laugh that the "entertainment system" accessory on a new car can cost several thousand dollars.
You can buy quite a few iPads for less money, and take them to your hotel room, tent/cabin while camping, the park, and even use them in the vehicle.
The argument for the pro-Flash crowd a couple months ago was: "If Flash and other multimedia plugins were obsolescing we’d see Adobe start to focus on HTML5 instead of pushing Flash as the only option.”
Yet now we have Adobe hitting HTML5/CSS3/JS with Flash a fallback on two fronts, and MS coming out with a great (for MS) browser and focusing on HTML5/CSS3/JS over Silverlight.
I fully expect the Flash devs to picket WHATWG and W3C with misspelled signs saying “THAY TOOK ‘ER JOBS!"
Comments
Interesting. I always wondered why Apple seemed to advertize video on the iPad. I thought to myself, "you can't play a DVD on it......and who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
The streaming from a server of some sort makes more sense.
Note that you still have to (somehow) load the movie onto your computer in order to stream it using these applications. Thankfully, this is a fairly simple task using "Handbrake". It can even break the encryption on DVDs if you happen to have VLC installed on the same computer. I have a few hundred of my own movies loaded into iTunes in "m4v" format. Many of them take up less than 1 GB of space in spite of the fact that they look great when streamed via AppleTV to my bigscreen. (I originally thought that that level of compression would cause significant quality degredation.) Because of this, we can fit quite a few movies on both of our 64GB iPads. Perhaps you have never experienced this process, so you didn't really understand how simple and space efficient it is.
Until now, I hadn't heard of "StreamToMe", and I'm definitely going to get it along with the associated server software. Meanwhile, my family has been doing a great deal of movie watching while we travel (road or plane trips). Before we go on such a trip, our daughters drag the movies they want into specific playlists identified for the purpose, and I hook up the iPads, which automatically sync the movies of their choices for our impending trip. It is already a great travel companion. Now, with these streaming apps, we can also have remote access to our entire library from our hotel rooms or our relatives homes (assuming they have WiFi). Even greater! (Thanks, Dick.)
So now, reviewing your question...
"who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
... the answer is (emphatically) ME!
Thompson
This is what people want to buy. Not what they are buying.
But I think MacRulez still raises a good point. Want to buy is sometimes influenced by what is familiar and available. Given that the Playbook, Tab, etc are not yet in stores for the general public to see and know it exists, it's not really a shock that they want to buy an iPad.
Once they see the other two 'in the flesh' it is possible that the numbers will come up. Perhaps not hugely but I could see Apple's lead dropping down to more like 60% once all these other 'amazing' tablets are out. But 60% while some 6-7 other items share the other 40% still isn't shabby. Not to mention that while a result of being the only product on the market, this overwhelming lead is a dangerous territory anti-trust wise. It would actually benefit Apple legally to lose a little market share. They are still making bank hand over fist.
Let's also keep in mind that this is 3100 folks, gathered from who knows. And looking at other sources they are more than willing to admit that their results don't reflect the whole. So it's likely not a well formed population sample and was done by one of those magazine subscriber, web site members or joe on the street coming out of best buy methods.
I thought they linked to articles of others stating that the iPad has limited netbook sales this year.
True, there have been tons of articles. And it is plausible that percent wise, netbook sales have gone down as the ipad captures the market that didn't see the point in a netbook or subsize notebook for whatever reason.
What would be interesting is to see how netbook sales are affected if you toss the Macbook Air into the mix, cause regardless of what Apple might say, it is a netbook, even in the 'it's a sub size notebook with lower performance' form that pretty much every netbook has been guilty of.
1. There are varying needs i.e. casual computing vs. business/scientific/academic
2. There are various price points that influence purchasing decisions
3. There is software compatibility factors as well ( some applications have OS exclusivity )
Variety is good and a single product cannot fit everyones needs. I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
-kpluck
Have you seen the tiny boxes HP makes to do that? They are basically drive bays and IO for storing and serving media. I've only glanced at them.
I think a cheap netbook (I'm guessing they will start showing up for $50 on the used market) would make a great media and print server. They should be easier to set up and a lot more flexible than the dedicated boxes. I never did get my print server working
... I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
But, would you give up your MBPro for a MBAir?
Quite likely, I think, and you fit into the relatively small category of people who actually need a mobile desktop experience. Most people don't.
... That’s interesting. Desktop sales have been declining and notebook sales have been on the rise. I wonder if the iPad is showing it’s first signs of people buying it over a notebook and possibly the anecdotal trend of people buying a desktop as their stationary computing needs and iPad for their satellite computing needs, instead of having a single notebook for all computing needs.
I think this is the computing model of the future (and it will be the same with or without cloud): fixed workstations plus satellite devices. Satellite devices may be, depending on need, tablets or ultralight laptops, but tablets will be more prevalent. (Smartphones also serve as satellite devices, but are, and will remain, constrained in functionality and usability vs. tablets and UL laptops.)
Although, the article yesterday re NFC+fixed workstations points to another possible scenario where your "satellite device" is merely a repository, and the computing power is provided by a fixed workstation. This is further in the future, though, and depends on the ubiquity of fixed workstations supporting this functionality.
EDIT: Note that this NFC+fixed workstation mode of computing is still part of the Star Trek model that everyone, knowingly or not, is aiming for. Sometimes they carried around little data modules that they could just plug into any available computer to access and work with, and they always had exactly the tools they needed available.
But, would you give up your MBPro for a MBAir?
Quite likely, I think, and you fit into the relatively small category of people who actually need a mobile desktop experience. Most people don't.
Not sure. I don't know that much about MBA. Can you run Parallels? I need to manage Windows servers sometimes. That is what I like about Macs. You have full UNIX, plus Windows, plus OS X desktop environment. Totally flexible and powerful solution and the weight of MBP isn't that much of a burden for me.
True, there have been tons of articles. And it is plausible that percent wise, netbook sales have gone down as the ipad captures the market that didn't see the point in a netbook or subsize notebook for whatever reason.
At this point the causation is speculative, though too coincidental to seem unlikely. We?ll have to see some real numbers and a long term trend to really know for sure. Playing devil?s advocate, it could be the economy is turning around so people are buying cheap notebooks over netbooks, or realizing that they get a lot more bang for their buck with a $400 notebook.
What would be interesting is to see how netbook sales are affected if you toss the Macbook Air into the mix, cause regardless of what Apple might say, it is a netbook, even in the 'it's a sub size notebook with lower performance' form that pretty much every netbook has been guilty of.
I completely disagree. Netbooks are a low cost and small notebook form factor that came about specifically because of the Intel Atom and other such chips. The MacBook Air, Dell Adamo, Voodoo Envy and other ultra-portable notebooks are not netbooks.
The MacBook Air performs higher than cheap notebooks and far above any netbook on the market. It uses a C2D CPU and Nvidia IGP that are more powerful than most cheap notebooks and cost more, on their own, than most netbooks.
Interesting. I always wondered why Apple seemed to advertize video on the iPad. I thought to myself, "you can't play a DVD on it......and who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
The streaming from a server of some sort makes more sense.
Well:
1) In order to stream from a server, the video (DVD, etc.) has to reside on the server.
2) You can download videos to an iPad or stream them
3) You can sync any videos you have on your computer (we have 500) to your iPad.
So there are lots of ways to get content.
Also, it is fairly easy to write a server app for Mac OS X to stream to an iPhone or iPad.
If you are really lazy, you don't really need a streaming server on the computer. The iPad app just needs to "play" content from a remote URL, e.g. www.somesite.com/myVideo.mov.
To see what I mean, get the URL of any movie and enter it into Mobile Safari. Mobile Safari is just an app that can play a movie (in addition to surfing the web).
Here's one on my MobileMe:
http://web.me.com/dicklacara/Movies/...unstan%201.m4v
This really is trivial to do on a primitive level.
Where it becomes more complicated is when the server monitors bandwidth and adjusts the quality accordingly.
.
In California, we need to vote out of the Box...
.
Not sure. I don't know that much about MBA. Can you run Parallels? I need to manage Windows servers sometimes. That is what I like about Macs. You have full UNIX, plus Windows, plus OS X desktop environment. Totally flexible and powerful solution and the weight of MBP isn't that much of a burden for me.
Yes, any of the MBAs can do Parallels well. They all have Intel VT. You?ll want the 4GB, and depending on your workload they may not offer the right HW for your needs, but for the casual use of VMWare or Parallels for some esoteric app or checking how a webpage renders you should be fine.
iPad is solid built, designed with purpose from the ground up, and plenty zippy. There is an expectation of quality from an Apple product, and it gets delivered with every product they make. The public has faith in what Apple sells them. That goes a long way.
I too am skeptical that netbook sales are being heavily influenced by iPad sales.
Certainly there are many factors involved in the decline of netbooks. But in case you haven't noticed, while the Great Republican Recession is over TECHNICALLY (i.e. economy is no longer shrinking) the reality is a lot more grim in terms of any real recovery. So people are not turning away from them because they are so much richer now.
A drop from 24% to 14% (10 points) is a 42% drop, that is huge. People must be looking at alternatives for whatever reasons. Upscaling or moving over to iPad.
It would have been interesting to see actual sales figures so we can see what numbers we are talking about. How many units of netbooks and how many units of iPads. Then we could see the comparison. One thing is sure, someone is not too likely to buy both a netbook and an iPad.
Besides form factor there are other considerations people have when choosing to buy a computer.
1. There are varying needs i.e. casual computing vs. business/scientific/academic
2. There are various price points that influence purchasing decisions
3. There is software compatibility factors as well ( some applications have OS exclusivity )
Variety is good and a single product cannot fit everyones needs. I personally could not give up my MBP for an iPad because when I am on the road I need to be able to solve any issue that comes up. if for some reason they call me when I'm on vacation, it is going to require full capabilities to fix what ever is broken, otherwise they wouldn't have called me and would have fixed it themselves.
When I moved from BBerry to iPhone I stopped taking my laptop everywhere, I can VPN to my work & provide full support via RDP & VNC (though painful on tiny screen). With the iPad this is even more possible & is actually not a frustrating trade off at all. Now VMWare just announced RDC client app coming to iPad that gives users a true iPad thin client. I am at a place now where I am seriously considering moving to iMac + iPad vs MBPro for next config, especially since I can now use iTap VNC to remote into all our Mac systems.
If you really examine the multitude of apps available for iPad I think you will find it actually lacks very little now in the way of network troubleshooting. Scany is great network scanning tool, WifiTrak is good tool for scanning available wifi networks. There are RDP, VNC, & SSH apps galore. There are office apps like quickoffice or the iWork apps. You can organize PDFs in iBook app, do markups & bookmark your reading. There are actually even a few things an iPad can do that I wish my Mac could. The more time I spend actually working with iPads at my work the more I'm finding I'm not so in love with a full sized, full featured laptop. Crazy part is I have a 13" MB & it is starting to feel too big & clunky!
This is just temporary. There is no way the iPad will succeed in the long run without flash.
-kpluck
Flash is a dying technology.
Note that you still have to (somehow) load the movie onto your computer in order to stream it using these applications. Thankfully, this is a fairly simple task using "Handbrake". It can even break the encryption on DVDs if you happen to have VLC installed on the same computer. I have a few hundred of my own movies loaded into iTunes in "m4v" format. Many of them take up less than 1 GB of space in spite of the fact that they look great when streamed via AppleTV to my bigscreen. (I originally thought that that level of compression would cause significant quality degredation.) Because of this, we can fit quite a few movies on both of our 64GB iPads. Perhaps you have never experienced this process, so you didn't really understand how simple and space efficient it is.
Until now, I hadn't heard of "StreamToMe", and I'm definitely going to get it along with the associated server software. Meanwhile, my family has been doing a great deal of movie watching while we travel (road or plane trips). Before we go on such a trip, our daughters drag the movies they want into specific playlists identified for the purpose, and I hook up the iPads, which automatically sync the movies of their choices for our impending trip. It is already a great travel companion. Now, with these streaming apps, we can also have remote access to our entire library from our hotel rooms or our relatives homes (assuming they have WiFi). Even greater! (Thanks, Dick.)
So now, reviewing your question...
"who's going to somehow load a movie onto their computer, sync the iPad (if it'll fit in the meager memory), and then watch it?"
... the answer is (emphatically) ME!
Thompson
I have to laugh that the "entertainment system" accessory on a new car can cost several thousand dollars.
You can buy quite a few iPads for less money, and take them to your hotel room, tent/cabin while camping, the park, and even use them in the vehicle.
.
In California, we need to vote out of the Box...
.
Flash is a dying technology.
The argument for the pro-Flash crowd a couple months ago was: "If Flash and other multimedia plugins were obsolescing we’d see Adobe start to focus on HTML5 instead of pushing Flash as the only option.”
Yet now we have Adobe hitting HTML5/CSS3/JS with Flash a fallback on two fronts, and MS coming out with a great (for MS) browser and focusing on HTML5/CSS3/JS over Silverlight.
I fully expect the Flash devs to picket WHATWG and W3C with misspelled signs saying “THAY TOOK ‘ER JOBS!"
Flash is a dying technology.
Yeah but its dying from something like low grade prostate cancer which will take 30 years to kill it.