dysamoria

lam92103 said:

Come on Apple, we need a non-overpriced MacProMini with Desktop level components, for normal people. It'll be a hit with the gaming crowd, developers and be a good general purpose computer.

Don't include a GPU by default, so that we can just install our own and use it for gaming.

dewme said:

I'm starting to worry that Apple is slowly destroying the iPad, or at least the iPad as presented by Steve Jobs while lounging on a couch holding a magical portal into an information, entertainment, and self enrichment universe. What made the iPad so special was that it wasn't just another personal computer dragging along all the baggage and claptrap that personal computers cannot seem to distance themselves from. It was just a slab-o-glass, no keyboard, no mouse, no separate monitor, no external paraphernalia  to drag around or to clutter up your life.

You'd never see anyone selling "iPad Desks," "iPad Hutch," much less designating a chunk or real estate in their homes as the "iPad Room." The iPad was just something you cozied up with on the couch, or on a deck chair, in the passenger seat of a plane or train, like you would with a good book or sketch pad. You could throw it in your backpack or overnight bag to bring along as a personal companion or to keep up with your journal when you were away from your home or office. Nobody really cared about what was under the hood as long as it kept serving your personal needs. If you needed more than what the iPad delivered, you still had your trusty old personal computer, probably sitting on a special computer desk in the corner of the family room with a rat's nest of wires and peripherals dangling from it.

Look where the iPad is today. There must have been some engineers at Apple who felt personally diminished when they were accused of building a "content consumption device" as if doing that, even when done better than anyone else in the history of personal computing had ever done it so elegantly and effectively for couch dwellers, was actually a bad thing. Real men produce, real men generate content, real men type on keyboards and move cursors using mice and trackpads. Real men have fully preemptive multitasking overlapping window based operating systems on all of their real computing devices.

The claptrap of personal computers from days gone by has caught up and surrounded the iPad. The iPad needs a desk, keyboard, and pointing device to fulfill its manly "content production" tasks. We now do care about what's under the hood and have to worry about whether the iPad we buy is up to the tasks that we are asking of it. Worse yet, we see all of the horsepower the newest iPad has and wonder why not enough developers are developing OS versions or apps to seriously challenge all of those horses. I paid for all that power and I expect it to used. Not sure how or why, but just throw in some complexity until the little bugger begs for mercy.

Yes, I'm being dramatic, but I do sincerely believe that Apple has reached a point where they don't really know where to go with the iPad. They have shown us that their hardware designers can do amazing things in tiny spaces. They have created a gap between the iPad and its nearest competitor that causes the competition to simply throw up their arms and say "I give up." But they they've also moved the iPad further and further away from its "Steve on the Couch" origins and the raw vision of the iPad as the ultimate personal portal into the universe of consumable content and media.

Perhaps it time that the base iPad and iPad mini be seen as the only "True iPads" in the sense of the iPad that Steve Jobs presented to the world. All other iPads, or iPad Pros, or ProPads, really should really be seen as hybrid computing devices that exist somewhere in the personal computing spectrum between the true iPads and MacBook Pros, you know, in the same vicinity as Microsoft's Surface hybrid, but done much better and as only Apple can do best. I simply hope that the True iPad vision does not die.

Respect the couch.

CloudTalkin said:

entropys said:

ednl said:

Hey AppleInsider, stop autoplayng videos! And stop popping it up in other places on the page! And fix the placement of the closing button which doesn't work! (on iPad). Wtf.

Yes, it is annoying enough on other websites, but I expect more from an Apple related website. 

In ios/ipadOS/macOS 15 I would love a feature that not only prevents autoplay, but also dos attacks websites that do it.

Why would you expect more from an Apple related website?  It's not like Apple pays them to operate the site, thus negating the need to generate revenue through ads... ya know... to run the site and pay the staff.  If enough members donated, there wouldn't be a need for so many ads.  That goes for any website.  We want free sites but complain about how we get to have free sites.  

Ads are the commerce of the internet.  I don't like them either, but I do understand their necessity.  Heck, Apple understands their necessity too.  It's why Apple has increased it's ads in iOS and are actively courting advertisers to use their ad network.  Apple wants that ad money too.  They just market a different message to their audience.  Pay attention to the actions, not the words.