Editorial: Steve Jobs shared secrets of Apple's iPad but nobody listened

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 39

    rogifan_new said:
    4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning?
    4) The App Store was launched in 2008. The iPad was launched in 2010. 5) The iPad supported both keyboards and stylus use when originally launched.
    Right and when the iPad launched a lot of apps were just blown up iPhone apps. There is no question the way Apple is positioning the iPad now is different than the way Jobs positioned it in 2010. What breathed new life into iPad was the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and software changes to allow greater capabilities.
    Nonsense. The only blown up apps were iPhone apps which the ipad ran in a sort of backward compatibility mode, until devs had time to build new apps and target both form factors. Nobody, nobody, suggested the stretched iPhone apps were the intended idea. Native iPad apps were always the idea. 

    (Where do you people get these ideas?!)
    edited November 2019 ronnmacguiwatto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 39
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    rogifan_new said:
    4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning?
    4) The App Store was launched in 2008. The iPad was launched in 2010. 5) The iPad supported both keyboards and stylus use when originally launched.
    Right and when the iPad launched a lot of apps were just blown up iPhone apps. There is no question the way Apple is positioning the iPad now is different than the way Jobs positioned it in 2010. What breathed new life into iPad was the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and software changes to allow greater capabilities.
    Nonsense. The only blown up apps were iPhone apps which the ipad ran in a sort of backward compatibility mode, until devs had time to build new apps and target both form factors. Nobody, nobody, suggested the stretched iPhone apps were the intended idea. Native iPad apps were always the idea. 

    (Where do you people get these ideas?!)
    "a lot of"
  • Reply 23 of 39
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 2,144member

    lmac said:
    One of DED's favorite forms of storytelling is rewriting history to make Apple and Jobs seem to have thought of everything, but let's remember that we don't write articles about flops. You never see DED defending the genius of Ping, the iTunes social network, or the Apple HiFi. Still, there are lots of things in this article that qualify as spin, or that are just plain false. 1) When the iPad came out, people were stunned that it was just a scaled up phone that couldn't make phone calls, and not a more capable device. They were correct about its early limitations. 2) The product name almost sunk the launch, with people comparing it to feminine hygiene products. 3) The predicted dominance of the eBook and magazine industry never came to pass. 4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning? 6) The iPad push into the K12 classroom as a textbook replacement is over. Schools are replacing aging iPads with Chromebooks that cost less, are more rugged, easier to manage, and simply do more. 7) The one big thing Apple got right was to make the iPad the best tablet money can buy, and to keep making incremental improvements. Staying above the low-end competition is what Apple always does, but it paid off because the low end Android and Amazon tablets are clunky, sluggish, and non-intuitive in comparison.
    So much ignorance. 

    - People claimed that it was just a big phone, but they were wrong. A pool is just a big bathtub but the size allows it to do more. 

    - A few juvenile basement dwellers on tech rumor sites obsessed with feminine hygiene products did not remotely sink the ipad launch. 

    - iPad launched with an app store.

    - The original iPad launched with an optional keyboard dock, so claiming Jobs insisted it was unnecessary is bunk. What he said about stylus (which was about the iPhone dur) was that if you needed one to operate a device (like the Palms of the day) the UI sucked. Styluses existed for the original and Apple sells one first-party today, but it remains unnecessary for normal operation. 

    - Chromebooks do less than ipads, IMO. I’ve still yet to see one in person anywhere. The market has spoken. 
    To be fair, the initial snickering about the name “iPad” wasn’t just due to basement-dwelling tech nerds free-associating rude terms like Beavis and Butt-Head. 

    The term “iPad” had already been coined in a MadTV sketch that spoofed Apple with an electronic feminine hygiene product by that name. After the introduction of iMac and iPod, everybody wanted to put a lower-case “i” in front of other existing words. The sketch was crass, but funny.  

    So the silly, rude version already existed when Steve Jobs marched out and introduced the tablet using the same name. That this would cause some people to giggle a little should surprise no one. That this laughter would have little effect on iPad sales should be equally unsurprising. 
    dysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 24 of 39
    The iPad is simultaneously two things:

    1) A fantastic media consumption *and* creation device that is so much more convenient that the desktop/laptop form factor.
    2) A crippled device artificially limited by two easily reversible hardware and software design decisions.

    Which design decisions am I referring to?

    a) Lack of USB-C on the non-Pro iPad.  This would open up a universe of desktop peripherals to iPad users such as removable storage, etc.  Aside from possible supplier constraints, I can't see why USB-C is a Pro-only feature.
    b) Lack of spellchecking using only an attached keyboard.  Fixing typos requires reaching for the screen and breaking the flow of typing.  Windows and Linux have the context menu key/shortcut (SHIFT-F10).  macOS first-party have use an elegant API where users can select spelling corrections using arrow keys.  From my experiments at the Apple store, no such API exists for iPadOS.  This limitation prevents Apple from selling the iPad and iPad Pro to authors, journalists, transcriptionists, etc who spend a lot of time typing.
    dysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 39
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    He didn't reveal how much Apple spent to develop those apps—millions of dollars on top of the opportunity cost of investing the software expertise of teams of the best people Apple could find.“

    What does this pile of words really mean? Where is your citation of source on “millions of dollars”?

    Your articles could be excellent computer history educations if they weren’t blown up in size by verbosity, attempted cleverness, and Apple worship. The bare facts would do nicely.
    muthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondonsingularity
  • Reply 26 of 39
    crowley said:

    rogifan_new said:
    4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning?
    4) The App Store was launched in 2008. The iPad was launched in 2010. 5) The iPad supported both keyboards and stylus use when originally launched.
    Right and when the iPad launched a lot of apps were just blown up iPhone apps. There is no question the way Apple is positioning the iPad now is different than the way Jobs positioned it in 2010. What breathed new life into iPad was the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and software changes to allow greater capabilities.
    Nonsense. The only blown up apps were iPhone apps which the ipad ran in a sort of backward compatibility mode, until devs had time to build new apps and target both form factors. Nobody, nobody, suggested the stretched iPhone apps were the intended idea. Native iPad apps were always the idea. 

    (Where do you people get these ideas?!)
    "a lot of"
    So? The point of this person’s post was to suggest that was the plan, or a failing, or the proof that Apple had to adjust, etc etc. All bogus. Even if every single initial app was a stretched iphone app, it simply doesn’t matter, as that was the obvious necessity since the ipad was developed in near secrecy and the public app devs couldn’t modify their apps until after launch. 

    What part of this is difficult to grasp? It is obvious that ipad was intended to have native ipad apps which were more than “just blown up iPhone apps”.
    edited November 2019 ronnwatto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 39

    AppleZulu said:

    lmac said:
    One of DED's favorite forms of storytelling is rewriting history to make Apple and Jobs seem to have thought of everything, but let's remember that we don't write articles about flops. You never see DED defending the genius of Ping, the iTunes social network, or the Apple HiFi. Still, there are lots of things in this article that qualify as spin, or that are just plain false. 1) When the iPad came out, people were stunned that it was just a scaled up phone that couldn't make phone calls, and not a more capable device. They were correct about its early limitations. 2) The product name almost sunk the launch, with people comparing it to feminine hygiene products. 3) The predicted dominance of the eBook and magazine industry never came to pass. 4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning? 6) The iPad push into the K12 classroom as a textbook replacement is over. Schools are replacing aging iPads with Chromebooks that cost less, are more rugged, easier to manage, and simply do more. 7) The one big thing Apple got right was to make the iPad the best tablet money can buy, and to keep making incremental improvements. Staying above the low-end competition is what Apple always does, but it paid off because the low end Android and Amazon tablets are clunky, sluggish, and non-intuitive in comparison.
    So much ignorance. 

    - People claimed that it was just a big phone, but they were wrong. A pool is just a big bathtub but the size allows it to do more. 

    - A few juvenile basement dwellers on tech rumor sites obsessed with feminine hygiene products did not remotely sink the ipad launch. 

    - iPad launched with an app store.

    - The original iPad launched with an optional keyboard dock, so claiming Jobs insisted it was unnecessary is bunk. What he said about stylus (which was about the iPhone dur) was that if you needed one to operate a device (like the Palms of the day) the UI sucked. Styluses existed for the original and Apple sells one first-party today, but it remains unnecessary for normal operation. 

    - Chromebooks do less than ipads, IMO. I’ve still yet to see one in person anywhere. The market has spoken. 
    To be fair, the initial snickering about the name “iPad” wasn’t just due to basement-dwelling tech nerds free-associating rude terms like Beavis and Butt-Head. 

    The term “iPad” had already been coined in a MadTV sketch that spoofed Apple with an electronic feminine hygiene product by that name. After the introduction of iMac and iPod, everybody wanted to put a lower-case “i” in front of other existing words. The sketch was crass, but funny.  

    So the silly, rude version already existed when Steve Jobs marched out and introduced the tablet using the same name. That this would cause some people to giggle a little should surprise no one. That this laughter would have little effect on iPad sales should be equally unsurprising. 
    News to me (is this MadTV the same Mad Magazine that dwindled into non-existence?), but still an absolute minority of the general market population and had zero effect on sales, let alone nearly sinking the launch as this silly person claimed. 
    edited November 2019 ronnwatto_cobra
  • Reply 28 of 39
    I bought the first iPad on release day, followed by the original Air and last year bought the 11” Pro. Over the years everything I loved about the original is still there but it now does so much more, yet, unless you want to know about it, is just about as simple to use as that 2010 incarnation.

    At the moment, I’m transferring almost all data from my MacBook Pro to my iPad since iPadOS came out, to leave my Mac to run Xcode and a few other apps only available on my Mac or that work better. Other than those, the benefits of having such a blazingly quick, beautifully small computer with 4G, GPS and a camera that I can slip in a small shoulder bag beats my Mac (for me) in almost every way possible.

    I still need my truck. For now.
    Solidewmeronnwatto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 39
    lmac said:
    One of DED's favorite forms of storytelling is rewriting history to make Apple and Jobs seem to have thought of everything, but let's remember that we don't write articles about flops. You never see DED defending the genius of Ping, the iTunes social network, or the Apple HiFi. Still, there are lots of things in this article that qualify as spin, or that are just plain false. 1) When the iPad came out, people were stunned that it was just a scaled up phone that couldn't make phone calls, and not a more capable device. They were correct about its early limitations. 2) The product name almost sunk the launch, with people comparing it to feminine hygiene products. 3) The predicted dominance of the eBook and magazine industry never came to pass. 4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning? 6) The iPad push into the K12 classroom as a textbook replacement is over. Schools are replacing aging iPads with Chromebooks that cost less, are more rugged, easier to manage, and simply do more. 7) The one big thing Apple got right was to make the iPad the best tablet money can buy, and to keep making incremental improvements. Staying above the low-end competition is what Apple always does, but it paid off because the low end Android and Amazon tablets are clunky, sluggish, and non-intuitive in comparison.


    Second, I have written about a series of unsuccessful concepts or product flops Apple has made, including Ping and iPod HiFi. There's even mention of Ping in this very article, making it a bizarre example for you to use in slandering what I write as "just plain false."




    Really?!? You’ve written articles like you do this one about Apple’s flops and failures? Could you please provide links as I’ve been looking for these forever. I’d love to read them if they are in the same fashion that you talk about all the great things Apple does better than anyone else. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 30 of 39
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    crowley said:

    rogifan_new said:
    4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning?
    4) The App Store was launched in 2008. The iPad was launched in 2010. 5) The iPad supported both keyboards and stylus use when originally launched.
    Right and when the iPad launched a lot of apps were just blown up iPhone apps. There is no question the way Apple is positioning the iPad now is different than the way Jobs positioned it in 2010. What breathed new life into iPad was the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and software changes to allow greater capabilities.
    Nonsense. The only blown up apps were iPhone apps which the ipad ran in a sort of backward compatibility mode, until devs had time to build new apps and target both form factors. Nobody, nobody, suggested the stretched iPhone apps were the intended idea. Native iPad apps were always the idea. 

    (Where do you people get these ideas?!)
    "a lot of"
    So? The point of this person’s post was to suggest that was the plan, or a failing, or the proof that Apple had to adjust, etc etc. All bogus. Even if every single initial app was a stretched iphone app, it simply doesn’t matter, as that was the obvious necessity since the ipad was developed in near secrecy and the public app devs couldn’t modify their apps until after launch. 

    What part of this is difficult to grasp? It is obvious that ipad was intended to have native ipad apps which were more than “just blown up iPhone apps”.
    I don't think he's even necessarily talking about the compatibility mode, a large number of native iPad apps were a lick of paint on an iPhone app to stretch it to full screen and maybe make a bit of a better use of the space without offering much additional functionality.  I think that's the point, that the full potential of the iPad that could be delivered through apps wasn't really appreciated, apps that weren't even possible at all on the iPhone.  Were you thinking in 2010 that we'd soon have full Photoshop running on a device that (at the time) you used with your finger?  Jobs demoed the iPad by showing how you read a book and browse a website, if he had a bigger plan in mind then he didn't let on much.
  • Reply 31 of 39

    Soli said:
    4) Jobs totally missed the importance of the App Store and 3rd party apps, which came later, and really had much to do with the success of the device. 5) Job's insistence that a stylus and keyboard were unnecessary have since been reversed, so which is it? Is Apple on the wrong track today, or did Jobs get it wrong in the beginning?
    4) The App Store was launched in 2008. The iPad was launched in 2010. 5) The iPad supported both keyboards and stylus use when originally launched.
    Right and when the iPad launched a lot of apps were just blown up iPhone apps. There is no question the way Apple is positioning the iPad now is different than the way Jobs positioned it in 2010. What breathed new life into iPad was the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and software changes to allow greater capabilities.
    1) "Lots" doesn't mean anything. Apple allowed iPhone apps to run on the iPad, and before people experienced them many assumed they would range from just as good to good enough. They weren't. Apple clearly had no intention of allowing iPhone apps to run on the iPad for long…and they didn't.

    2) Is it really not obvious to you as to why a company would position a product differently a decade later? Even if Jobs was still CEO of Apple the iPad would still be a very different product than what it was back in 2010. You can look at the Mac and iPod under Jobs since he returned to Apple to see that technology and culture change.
    I can still get iPhone apps on my iPad Pro. Almost too many. 
  • Reply 32 of 39
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,038member
    I can still get iPhone apps on my iPad Pro. Almost too many. 
    I had thought Apple had put the kibosh on that years ago, but maybe that what users did because it was such a shitty experience.
    edited November 2019 philboogiewatto_cobra
  • Reply 33 of 39
    ivanhivanh Posts: 597member
    If I knew that iOS version upgrade would have obsolete older iPads in 3 years, I wouldn’t spend the money. Many things promised by iPad were later found to be exaggerated and now this article said the original idea was to keep it “simple”? 
  • Reply 34 of 39
    My day one purchase of the original iPad remains the most important tech purchase I have ever made.  And I have purchased most Apple products over the years.  Missed the Lisa though.  My current iPad Pro remains my most used device, over my iPhone, iMac or MacBook.  
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 35 of 39
     only apparent hardware success had been Xbox

    I disagree. The MS Intellimouse was pretty awesome.

  • Reply 36 of 39
    A big part of why: iPad was designed to be simple enough... to operate while intoxicated.

    There's a class action lawsuit in the making.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 39
    It would be nice if they enable the phone.app (dialer tel scheme )feature on the iPad pro lte for some of customer instead of having to do iPhone Cellular Calls continuous ...
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 38 of 39
    Soli said:
    I can still get iPhone apps on my iPad Pro. Almost too many. 
    I had thought Apple had put the kibosh on that years ago, but maybe that what users did because it was such a shitty experience.
    "kibosh"

    Thank you! (always love to learn new words)
    Soliwatto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 39
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,312member
    The whole stylus thing people like to bring up really is getting LAME. See in the past with devices like the Newton or Windows Mobie PDA and phone, ALL required the use of a stylus. This was bascially just a small cheap plastic stick type thing. You really couldn't use your finger. You had small boxes, and scroll down menu's etc that you couldn't do with your fingers. I had a a HP iPak Windows Mobile 5 PDA with a swipe finger print reader. It had the stylus of course back then. You couldn't use your finger with it.

    Of course these stylus were small, plastic sticks that would get lost all the time. If you lost it and didn't have a spare, you couldn't use your device. When Steve jobs announced the iPhone and that you didn't need a stylus, except the one one attached to your hand, your Finger. This was what he was talking about. You can use your finger to navigate around your device. Of course Apple years later came out with their Pencil. That's really not a Stylus. Again a stylus is a small plastic stick type thing and the Apple Pencil is far more complex that that. It's also something you DON'T have to have or use. It's 100% a optional thing. In no way is it required to have to use your iPhone or iPad. This whole stylus thing needs to end.

    Even Samesungs Note which includes a stylus, many people didn't even use that. They just wanted the larger screen phone and still used their fingers. Android also doesn't require a stylus to be used to get around the OS. It has it if case you want to write on the screen in better detail than your finger.
    edited November 2019 ronnwatto_cobraspheric
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