why exactly is this a baaaad decision? Pretty massive java development community out there. And, wile it may not be popular here, it also allows adobe air.
Glad you asked. For one, Java runs a Trash Collector that is deeply engrained into the Java code and therefore cannot be deactivated. So it has priority over all instances and therefore will stop any and all actions including the touch framework to resolve pointers and unused variables in memory. Apple has a much better solution than that. Trash collection is a good thing for desktop apps but not mobile apps, it takes way too many resources.
Moreover, Java is not even close to being as stable as Objective-C. I've developed for both platforms.
I used one in the Apple store. I loaded up pure Flash sites on an 11 inch MacBook Mini. They all played just fine. I don't quite understand why people complain so much.
Are the new Minis better at Flash than regular Macs?
That's the weird thing. I ran a Flash benchmark* on a friend's MacBook Air 11" 1.4ghz and it scored a little better than a demo MacBook Pro 13" lying around (not sure what the MBP spec is) -- but you see, my friend's MBA 11" would have the latest version of Flash, the MBP 13" probably had a older version or even maybe Flash Version 9.
But yeah, Flash is fine on the MBA 11" 1.4ghz. Who would have thunk.
In the end for non-video Flash sites if the same version of Flash is on all Macs, then clock speed should be the primary determinator of speed. Unlikely the MBA 11" (very, very unlikely) has special optimisations for non-video Flash.
Why Buy a Tab when you can buy "the real thing". This question dates to 1963, well actually 1969. Although Coca-Cola introduced Tab in 1963, we were not told that Coke was the real thing until 1969.
Sings jingle: iPad, it's the real thing.
I tried Tab in 1964 and it would gag a vulture!
There are still some really big Tab aficionados out there. Its actually a pretty accurate analogy. Its still available in Australia and the UK.
If someone want a 7 inch tablet this year, then this is probably the tablet to get. Some will buy because of the size factor and some will buy because it isn't an Apple device. It will have some success due to these factors. It will be interesting to see how much success it will really have. 1 other factor to take into account is upgradeability. Android has been real hit or miss on this. I wonder how easily this tablet will accept future upgrades. This may limit it's success to a degree.
For those that want a larger tablet at a better price without a contract, then the iPad is still without competition.
The very fact that the skyfire browser has grossed over a million dollars in its first week is proof that people want to use flash on their mobile devices.
No, it is proof that people want to play video on their mobile devices, and that there is still a lot of video on the web that only plays if you have Flash. The solution is not to put Flash on every device, the solution is to offer alternative delivery methods for web video. Fortunately it seems that's exactly what's happening, and it is happening at a breakneck speed, availability of HTML5 video has increased 5-fold in just 6 months up to the point over half of the video's on the web also plays if you don't have Flash. Remember: it's not just Apple users who benefit from this, the vast majority of phones does not handle Flash video very well, a large majority of phones doesn't handle it at all, and no -I repeat: NO- mobile devices *at all* handle Flash video better than HTML5 video, if they support both. Flash for video = a bad thing.
Which leaves Flash for interactive content, for which it is kind of tolerable on workstations (and it has to be said: for which no viable alternatives exist as of yet), but most of said content doesn't work on a touchscreen phone anyway since it wasn't made for it. Interactive Flash on mobile = hardly a joy and not a dealmaker at all.
To be honest a netbook with good build quality (which is what is rumoured for the first chrome OS google branded netbook available later this month) appeals to me a lot more than an ipad. This is because I am a content producer more than a consumer. Also I find it frustrating and too slow to browse the web on an iPad because of lack of a keyboard. Sure the iPad looks great but for me the novelty wears off too quickly and all it performs really well at is mobile video.
The netbook market is still growing too and it will continue to. Not everyone, especially those not in the western world, can buy an iPad instead of a netbook.
As a content producer, wouldn't you be better served with a full sized laptop with rich applications as opposed to a Chrome netbook with web apps? Not a snide question, an honest one. (I've never used a netbook, nor do I really have a good grasp of what applications will be available on Chrome.)
I disagree with Jobs on the size, I really like the 7" size or at least one that is a bit smaller than the current iPad but this Galaxy Tab is not good enough and it's price is way out of proportion.. its not even worth 200 bucks let alone 600! It is a DoA.
I do hope though that Apple thinks of something to slim down the iPad line up. If they keep the same screen size, it's fine with me but then the edges need to slim down and the weight definitely needs to come down.
I have to agree. The iPad's screen size is great reading magazines, newspapers and books. And given how much attention that use got at the release of the iPad, I think THAT was a primary driver for Apple to make the screen the size it is. Pure conjecture on my part, but I think Apple was hoping to lock publishers into their device before the competition got a chance to respond. That would have put Apple in the driver's seat for what online print distribution should look like. And one way for Apple to lure the publishers was a nice big screen to display their content.
Jobs said you needed that big of a screen to "express" the software. BS! Apple created software to use the screen they chose. If they had chosen a smaller screen, they would have "expressed" their software in that space just as easily. Maybe a couple fewer buttons, a little shorter list of email in my inbox. But nothing drastic that would have destroyed the usabilty of the device.
Apple chose a larger screen size to support their goal of taking over print distribution. And they chose a great screen size for the purpose. But for some, perhaps many, that is not a primary purpose. And they, including me, would gladly trade screen size for something a bit more portable.
Apple's chance of taking over print distribution is quickly fading. As more and more other (and smaller) devices hit the market, the publishers will have to take that into account in their plans. We'll soon see how people respond to the smaller tablets, especially once their OS issues are sorted out.
Glad you asked. For one, Java runs a Trash Collector that is deeply engrained into the Java code and therefore cannot be deactivated. So it has priority over all instances and therefore will stop any and all actions including the touch framework to resolve pointers and unused variables in memory. Apple has a much better solution than that. Trash collection is a good thing for desktop apps but not mobile apps, it takes way too many resources.
While these are valid points, I think you're being a bit too harsh, I assume Google spent a lot of time optimizing their VM and the garbage collector to make it better suited for mobile devices.
The 'problem' with Java on a mobile platform is that Java (like other interpreted or byte-compiled languages) introduces an intermediate layer between the hardware and the OS and the applications running on it. This has one huge advantage, which is portability between architectures. It also has a pretty big disadvantage, which is overhead. In many cases Java will not necessarily be much slower than native code (like compiled Objective-C on iOS), and in some (rare) cases it can even be faster (due to runtime/dynamic optimizations that compilers cannot do). However, there are cases where Java really gets in the way of writing efficient code, and these cases aren't exactly rare at all. Games, for example, or applications that rely on predictable performance.
That said, Java has come a long way and it works quite well for most tasks without seriously affecting performance, but don't expect high-end stuff like the Epic Unreal engine for iOS to ever hit Android, since it is simply impossible to do that kind of stuff in Java, period. You'd have to resort to NDK's to make something like that for Android, which would mean it would only run on a subset of devices.
... Jobs said you needed that big of a screen to "express" the software. BS! Apple created software to use the screen they chose. If they had chosen a smaller screen, they would have "expressed" their software in that space just as easily. Maybe a couple fewer buttons, a little shorter list of email in my inbox. But nothing drastic that would have destroyed the usabilty of the device. ...
I love how people who have no knowledge of Apple's iPad prototyping process, and most likely no experience with, or understanding of, UI design, speak with such great authority on what they did, could have done, should have done and why they did it. Yeah, just leave a couple of buttons out, that'll do it.
More likely, and based on Jobs' own comments, they tested a whole range of sizes and UIs and found that at 7" you can't get a workable UI that sufficiently improves over a small phone UI to make it worthwhile. At 10", you have enough screen real estate to start to do interesting things that can be manipulated easily with a finger, but can be much richer than a phone UI. There's a threshold effect that requires a certain minimum size to properly accommodate usage. They probably did, during the many years the iPad was in development, make a 7" iPad prototype with a prototype UI, but it wasn't the device they wanted to make, so they didn't make it.
I can't speak for tjw and I don't use Chrome OS, but I do love my Ubuntu netbook because:
- the physical keyboard is very useful for us touch typists
- the clamshell form factor gives the screen built-in protection
- I can run all my favorite apps on it, the same ones I run on the desktop (Thunderbird, OpenOffice, OpenProject, Firefox, and a bunch of others - most of them free)
Ubuntu's no OS X, but in the absence of an OS X-powered netbook it's pretty good, at least good enough for me to do the things I need to do on it.
And at the risk of sounding price-conscious in a Mac forum, the fact that I paid less than $300 for my netbook has value to me. I can take it anywhere, even jungles or third-world countries, and feel comfortable that if I damage or even lose it I can replace it easily.
I buy bicycles the same way - can't see spending $1k on something that's so easily stolen.
Well, yes, price has always been one of the main selling points of netbooks. Size and weight are some others.
However, I thought that the context of tjw's post was that he would consider a Chrome powered netbook for content production. To me, "content production" implies a significant amount of time either developing code or multimedia stuff, or both. Can one really do that to great effect on a little bitty screen and with a Web OS, which seems like it was designed for content consumption? That seems strange to me, but I don't really know much about netbooks or Chrome, hence the question. For your part, MacRulez, do you actually use that netbook for content production? And if so, what does that even mean to you?
Google has stated that the current version of Android is not designed for use on pads. The next version will be. These manufacturers are jumping the gun. There is no Google store for pad apps, and these pads are basically a blown up version of an Android phone, minus the phone.
Every review I've seen has said that there are serious shortcomings in this "iPad killer". No one has recommended buying one.
No OS X-powered netbook? I beg to differ... No, it's not $399, but what do you expect from Apple? Junk?
Well to be fair, according to his response, price is one of the defining characteristics of a "netbook". I would imagine that a screen size of 11 inches may also not fit into his definition.
Comments
GALAXY TAB!
why exactly is this a baaaad decision? Pretty massive java development community out there. And, wile it may not be popular here, it also allows adobe air.
Glad you asked. For one, Java runs a Trash Collector that is deeply engrained into the Java code and therefore cannot be deactivated. So it has priority over all instances and therefore will stop any and all actions including the touch framework to resolve pointers and unused variables in memory. Apple has a much better solution than that. Trash collection is a good thing for desktop apps but not mobile apps, it takes way too many resources.
Moreover, Java is not even close to being as stable as Objective-C. I've developed for both platforms.
What, wait... so suddenly "just a big phone" has become a positive review meme?!
Exactly! All the spoon-clanging over how horrible the iPad was/is seems to have evaporated.
I used one in the Apple store. I loaded up pure Flash sites on an 11 inch MacBook Mini. They all played just fine. I don't quite understand why people complain so much.
Are the new Minis better at Flash than regular Macs?
That's the weird thing. I ran a Flash benchmark* on a friend's MacBook Air 11" 1.4ghz and it scored a little better than a demo MacBook Pro 13" lying around (not sure what the MBP spec is) -- but you see, my friend's MBA 11" would have the latest version of Flash, the MBP 13" probably had a older version or even maybe Flash Version 9.
But yeah, Flash is fine on the MBA 11" 1.4ghz. Who would have thunk.
In the end for non-video Flash sites if the same version of Flash is on all Macs, then clock speed should be the primary determinator of speed. Unlikely the MBA 11" (very, very unlikely) has special optimisations for non-video Flash.
And that 320M GPU is pretty impressive for 11".
*http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/465908
Why Buy a Tab when you can buy "the real thing". This question dates to 1963, well actually 1969. Although Coca-Cola introduced Tab in 1963, we were not told that Coke was the real thing until 1969.
Sings jingle: iPad, it's the real thing.
I tried Tab in 1964 and it would gag a vulture!
There are still some really big Tab aficionados out there. Its actually a pretty accurate analogy. Its still available in Australia and the UK.
For those that want a larger tablet at a better price without a contract, then the iPad is still without competition.
Neal
The very fact that the skyfire browser has grossed over a million dollars in its first week is proof that people want to use flash on their mobile devices.
No, it is proof that people want to play video on their mobile devices, and that there is still a lot of video on the web that only plays if you have Flash. The solution is not to put Flash on every device, the solution is to offer alternative delivery methods for web video. Fortunately it seems that's exactly what's happening, and it is happening at a breakneck speed, availability of HTML5 video has increased 5-fold in just 6 months up to the point over half of the video's on the web also plays if you don't have Flash. Remember: it's not just Apple users who benefit from this, the vast majority of phones does not handle Flash video very well, a large majority of phones doesn't handle it at all, and no -I repeat: NO- mobile devices *at all* handle Flash video better than HTML5 video, if they support both. Flash for video = a bad thing.
Which leaves Flash for interactive content, for which it is kind of tolerable on workstations (and it has to be said: for which no viable alternatives exist as of yet), but most of said content doesn't work on a touchscreen phone anyway since it wasn't made for it. Interactive Flash on mobile = hardly a joy and not a dealmaker at all.
To be honest a netbook with good build quality (which is what is rumoured for the first chrome OS google branded netbook available later this month) appeals to me a lot more than an ipad. This is because I am a content producer more than a consumer. Also I find it frustrating and too slow to browse the web on an iPad because of lack of a keyboard. Sure the iPad looks great but for me the novelty wears off too quickly and all it performs really well at is mobile video.
The netbook market is still growing too and it will continue to. Not everyone, especially those not in the western world, can buy an iPad instead of a netbook.
As a content producer, wouldn't you be better served with a full sized laptop with rich applications as opposed to a Chrome netbook with web apps? Not a snide question, an honest one. (I've never used a netbook, nor do I really have a good grasp of what applications will be available on Chrome.)
Thompson
... I like many things about the Air, but man I'd love to see a sub-$400 netbook from Apple.
At <$400, there would not be many things you'd like about it.
I disagree with Jobs on the size, I really like the 7" size or at least one that is a bit smaller than the current iPad but this Galaxy Tab is not good enough and it's price is way out of proportion.. its not even worth 200 bucks let alone 600! It is a DoA.
I do hope though that Apple thinks of something to slim down the iPad line up. If they keep the same screen size, it's fine with me but then the edges need to slim down and the weight definitely needs to come down.
I have to agree. The iPad's screen size is great reading magazines, newspapers and books. And given how much attention that use got at the release of the iPad, I think THAT was a primary driver for Apple to make the screen the size it is. Pure conjecture on my part, but I think Apple was hoping to lock publishers into their device before the competition got a chance to respond. That would have put Apple in the driver's seat for what online print distribution should look like. And one way for Apple to lure the publishers was a nice big screen to display their content.
Jobs said you needed that big of a screen to "express" the software. BS! Apple created software to use the screen they chose. If they had chosen a smaller screen, they would have "expressed" their software in that space just as easily. Maybe a couple fewer buttons, a little shorter list of email in my inbox. But nothing drastic that would have destroyed the usabilty of the device.
Apple chose a larger screen size to support their goal of taking over print distribution. And they chose a great screen size for the purpose. But for some, perhaps many, that is not a primary purpose. And they, including me, would gladly trade screen size for something a bit more portable.
Apple's chance of taking over print distribution is quickly fading. As more and more other (and smaller) devices hit the market, the publishers will have to take that into account in their plans. We'll soon see how people respond to the smaller tablets, especially once their OS issues are sorted out.
Hey! - I remember Tab - sigh
tab
http://don-has-that.amazonwebstore.c...source=froogle
They even sell a Tab Engery drink for the older folks to keep up with the kids.
Glad you asked. For one, Java runs a Trash Collector that is deeply engrained into the Java code and therefore cannot be deactivated. So it has priority over all instances and therefore will stop any and all actions including the touch framework to resolve pointers and unused variables in memory. Apple has a much better solution than that. Trash collection is a good thing for desktop apps but not mobile apps, it takes way too many resources.
While these are valid points, I think you're being a bit too harsh, I assume Google spent a lot of time optimizing their VM and the garbage collector to make it better suited for mobile devices.
The 'problem' with Java on a mobile platform is that Java (like other interpreted or byte-compiled languages) introduces an intermediate layer between the hardware and the OS and the applications running on it. This has one huge advantage, which is portability between architectures. It also has a pretty big disadvantage, which is overhead. In many cases Java will not necessarily be much slower than native code (like compiled Objective-C on iOS), and in some (rare) cases it can even be faster (due to runtime/dynamic optimizations that compilers cannot do). However, there are cases where Java really gets in the way of writing efficient code, and these cases aren't exactly rare at all. Games, for example, or applications that rely on predictable performance.
That said, Java has come a long way and it works quite well for most tasks without seriously affecting performance, but don't expect high-end stuff like the Epic Unreal engine for iOS to ever hit Android, since it is simply impossible to do that kind of stuff in Java, period. You'd have to resort to NDK's to make something like that for Android, which would mean it would only run on a subset of devices.
... Jobs said you needed that big of a screen to "express" the software. BS! Apple created software to use the screen they chose. If they had chosen a smaller screen, they would have "expressed" their software in that space just as easily. Maybe a couple fewer buttons, a little shorter list of email in my inbox. But nothing drastic that would have destroyed the usabilty of the device. ...
I love how people who have no knowledge of Apple's iPad prototyping process, and most likely no experience with, or understanding of, UI design, speak with such great authority on what they did, could have done, should have done and why they did it. Yeah, just leave a couple of buttons out, that'll do it.
More likely, and based on Jobs' own comments, they tested a whole range of sizes and UIs and found that at 7" you can't get a workable UI that sufficiently improves over a small phone UI to make it worthwhile. At 10", you have enough screen real estate to start to do interesting things that can be manipulated easily with a finger, but can be much richer than a phone UI. There's a threshold effect that requires a certain minimum size to properly accommodate usage. They probably did, during the many years the iPad was in development, make a 7" iPad prototype with a prototype UI, but it wasn't the device they wanted to make, so they didn't make it.
For that price it should come with a baby kangaroo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEB1VyvZEA
Where can i buy a kangaroo to use an iPad carrying case? BTW, that video is adorable.
I can't speak for tjw and I don't use Chrome OS, but I do love my Ubuntu netbook because:
- the physical keyboard is very useful for us touch typists
- the clamshell form factor gives the screen built-in protection
- I can run all my favorite apps on it, the same ones I run on the desktop (Thunderbird, OpenOffice, OpenProject, Firefox, and a bunch of others - most of them free)
Ubuntu's no OS X, but in the absence of an OS X-powered netbook it's pretty good, at least good enough for me to do the things I need to do on it.
And at the risk of sounding price-conscious in a Mac forum, the fact that I paid less than $300 for my netbook has value to me. I can take it anywhere, even jungles or third-world countries, and feel comfortable that if I damage or even lose it I can replace it easily.
I buy bicycles the same way - can't see spending $1k on something that's so easily stolen.
Well, yes, price has always been one of the main selling points of netbooks. Size and weight are some others.
However, I thought that the context of tjw's post was that he would consider a Chrome powered netbook for content production. To me, "content production" implies a significant amount of time either developing code or multimedia stuff, or both. Can one really do that to great effect on a little bitty screen and with a Web OS, which seems like it was designed for content consumption? That seems strange to me, but I don't really know much about netbooks or Chrome, hence the question. For your part, MacRulez, do you actually use that netbook for content production? And if so, what does that even mean to you?
Thompson
Every review I've seen has said that there are serious shortcomings in this "iPad killer". No one has recommended buying one.
Ubuntu's no OS X, but in the absence of an OS X-powered netbook it's pretty good, at least good enough for me to do the things I need to do on it.
No OS X-powered netbook? I beg to differ... No, it's not $399, but what do you expect from Apple? Junk?
No OS X-powered netbook? I beg to differ... No, it's not $399, but what do you expect from Apple? Junk?
Well to be fair, according to his response, price is one of the defining characteristics of a "netbook". I would imagine that a screen size of 11 inches may also not fit into his definition.
Thompson