“Most of the iPad reactions I’ve read have been negative, but I have been completely satisfied with what Apple announced. iPad is exactly the product I’ve been wishing for ever since I wrapped my mind around the iPhone and its constraints. While the rumor mill was churning with all kinds of crazy possibilities for the Apple tablet, I mostly rolled my eyes, because I felt strongly that all Apple needed to do to revolutionize computing was simply to make an iPhone with a large screen. Anyone who feels underwhelmed by that doesn’t understand how much of the iPhone OS’s potential is still untapped,” Joe Hewitt blogs.
“I spent a year and a half attempting to reduce a massive, complex social networking website into a handheld, touch-screen form factor. My goal was initially just to make a mobile companion for the facebook.com mothership, but once I got comfortable with the platform I became convinced it was possible to create a version of Facebook that was actually better than the website! Of all the platforms I’ve developed on in my career, from the desktop to the web, iPhone OS gave me the greatest sense of empowerment, and had the highest ceiling for raising the art of UI design,” Hewitt writes. “Except there was one thing keeping me from reaching that ceiling: the screen was too small.”
“At some point I came to the conclusion that Facebook on iPhone OS could not truly exceed the website until I could adapt it to a screen size closer to a laptop,” Hewitt explains. “It needed to support more than one column of information at a time. I couldn’t fit enough tools on the screen to support any kind of advanced creative work. Photos were too small to show off to my far-sighted parents. The web required too much panning and zooming to enjoy reading. Beyond just Facebook, most of the apps I used most on my iPhone also suffered from these limitations, like Google Reader, Instapaper, and all image, video, and text editing tools. The bottom line is, many apps which were cute toys on iPhone can become full-featured power tools on the iPad, making you forget about their desktop/laptop predecessors. We just have to invent them.”
MacDailyNews Note: In November 2009, Hewitt decided to stop developing for the iPhone platform over issues he had with Apple’s App Store policies.
Hewitt continues, “iPad is an incredible opportunity for developers to re-imagine every single category of desktop and web software there is. Seriously, if you’re a developer and you’re not thinking about how your app could work better on the iPad and its descendants, you deserve to get left behind… iPad offers new metaphors that will let users engage with their computers with dramatically less friction. That gives me, as a developer, a sense of power and potency and creativity like no other. It makes the software market feel wide open again, like no one’s hegemony is safe. How anyone can feel underwhelmed by that is beyond me.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome back, Joe!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Frank P” for the heads up.]
It’s hard to stay away, eh?
“Oh. Now people want to read suddenly?”
– CEO Audible.com
All is forgiven Unca Joe! Welcome back!
Joe’s words are insightful, profound and inspiring. Hopefully Apple will pay attention to this man’s helpful criticisms in the future.
at any positive as the reaction to this iPad is running from disappointment to ridicule. Anyone losing sleep in Cupertino?
The strategy of holding back on features to entice first adopters to buy again in a few months may not work this time.
Eventually, everyone will realise that iPhones and iPod touches are just iPads, but with smaller screens.
I have the feeling…okay, what I want
by the time the iPad goes on sale the OS will have already been updated to 4.0 and a touch optimized iLife.
at least by june…
i wonder which auto company will put this in first, be pretty sick in car…
“How anyone can feel underwhelmed by that is beyond me.”
Those negative shortsighted comments are coming from advocates of the Windows/Netbooks/Kindle/PC world. Their biggest fear is losing another space in the market because they know that the products and company they advocate could never deliver a true innovative product the way Apple can. Developers and tech writers with a brain can see the writing on the wall. You Windows/Netbooks/WinMo//Kindle/BB/Palm/Zune HD… just got owned by Apple.
Developers need to read this article to realize the potential to truly create amazing magical software for this new platform from Apple. Apple is pushing us towards the future. You can get on board or stay behind and play with your crappy POS Windows/Palm/Rim/Netbook/ZuneHD…..See Ya!
Developers start your coders… The people that will strike it rich with iPad apps will be the first one into iPad app Pool. If you snooze you’ll loose or worse get left behind.
Yes….
I am no developer, the only thing I didn’t like was no front camera bcoz of video conferencing.
I knew in my mind after viewing the ipad presentations and reading many many comments about it, I too agree that the ipad out-of-the box is not “spectacular” since it’s just a bigger iPod touch.
However, I do believe it is a fantastic platform for many cool things to come. I love my iPod touch, feels great to use, fun to play with with both hands and fingers, first device that makes me feel I am really interacting with contents.
And I do agree that ipad would give a great new ui experiences when developers really use it to the potential.
How fun it will be if we can manipulate contents with 2 hands / or five fingers if we were holding the pad with 1 hand.
Some things I would have liked to see is…
Why are there no folders? You can with it jailbroken.. it wouldn’t kill to add folder support to this.. maybe when they release it there will be a new iOS update for the ipad and iphone/touch
Also.. the icons looks pretty far spread apart.. they should have made the icons bigger in my opinion or smaller and fit more in there. Since this has enough screen why cant we just resize the icons ourselves?
thirdly the dock… I’d like to have that dock on the iphone.. looks cooler. Plus.. it should act like osx… more icons you add the smaller the icons get.. just set a limit of 8 icons or something.. or slap in a folder and have it work just like in snow leopard.. you hold on the folder and a menu comes up of other apps you have in it and maybe sub folders within that.
All of which I think is done in jailbreak.. but would be really awesome to have which is why I may just jailbreak this iphone for the folder feature.. I’m sure many of you would agree if you have many games you’d rather go to one folder and see them all instead of swiping through a few pages… sure the search thing is cool but I also like seeing the items.
I guess 4thly when my uncle gets the ipad im thinking of buying the stylus I’ve seen people use on the iphone. If this thing could be plugged into the mac and used as a drawing tablet that would be amazing. the waacom ones are nice.. but your drawing on a blank surface… I’d love to be able to open photoshop or illustrator and just use the ipad as my artboard..
my 2 cents
Welcome back Joe, it’s cold outside isn’t it!
Welcome back, now get to work building the future!!
Old geezers like me who were pioneers into the whole personal computer age as well as the later generation who just loved to tinker with their computers will whine about how the pad is a closed environment and how Steve is making all the decisions.
Well, welcome to the new age.
This thing is truly an “appliance.”
It’s going to change the world. Even if you can’t open it up and play with it’s guts, or any of the other things we all did back in the day.
I’ve been waiting for this exact thing for some ten years.
It’s great.
If you can’t see it, you can’t create it. Most doubters don’t see it. Most of the so-called “missing” stuff are just a conventional laundry list of yesterday’s features, and it blocks them from seeing the future.
Most people’s experience with a touch screen today is either on their smartphone, or watching the giant touch screens on TV shows and movies. A year or two from now, most software that does not require heavy text input will be expected to be touch-enabled, and people won’t even give Apple the credit of ushering in the new interactive computing era to the consumer masses.
@ RicMac,
You mean to tell us you opened up a 128 Mac and made it into a Fat Mac?
@ Big Als
I opened my 128k, added a macrescue card that turned it into a 512k with a scsi port – spent a kazillion dollars to buy a 5MB scsi hard drive – still have that old mac and it still runs. Those original old macs had a 9″ B&W;screen – remember?
“Grasping at any positive as the reaction to this iPad is running from disappointment to ridicule.”
Yeah, except for the people who have actually put their hands on it. It’s idiots like you that haven’t touched one that are ridiculing it. Shut up troll.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23859/
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23858/
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23851/
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23844/
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/23836/
This is obviously a balancing act;
-The Processor efficiency
-The Battery efficiency
-The OS efficiency
We have some idea of how advanced the OS is because of its roots, and some concept of where it could go because of those same roots. So the OS is already solid, fast and efficient. Evidently the APIs that make the OS X guts into the iOS are also pretty efficient.
Plus, it looks to me (from afar) that like the original Mac 128, they programmed very tightly to the processor, so that we have the first iteration of a product that is responsive, given the hardware constraints. Instead of a bloated proof of concept that wallows around trying to show what it could do with a better processor a few years from now.
I think this processor development is a very bedrock level move for Apple. And since they control everything, they can exploit this process so that the OS and processor skip merrily along together making everything they expose, snappy and sweet.
Everything they expose is the key concept. They don’t want the iPad to dog in any way, so those potentialities won’t be exposed. Multitasking won’t happen until the processor and the battery life support them.
Multitasking in the OS isn’t the problem, but if it punishes the processor, dings the battery life, and makes the iPad too hot to hold, then it’s not going to happen.
They must want this chip to have a lot of room, because they plan to use it across the product line. Efficiencies of scale for the chip means it’ll probably start showing up in every portable device Apple makes.
So the efficiency of both the chip and battery designs have to progress for the OS to become more complex.
The iPad doesn’t YET do some things I want, but I understand that Apple thinks that the device needs to rock at the things it does, and not do anything that will make the pad run too hot, or too slow.
As a first version of a new product I think it’s pretty damn smart. And the software potentials are fantastic. Just getting FileMaker onto the iPad will open up a world of possibilities.
Even if for the next version or two, you can’t multitask with an iPad.
This is obviously a balancing act;
-The Processor efficiency
-The Battery efficiency
-The OS efficiency
We have some idea of how advanced the OS is because of its roots, and some concept of where it could go because of those same roots. So the OS is already solid, fast and efficient. Evidently the APIs that make the OS X guts into the iOS are also pretty efficient.
Plus, it looks to me (from afar) that like the original Mac 128, they programmed very tightly to the processor, so that we have the first iteration of a product that is responsive, given the hardware constraints. Instead of a bloated proof of concept that wallows around trying to show what it could do with a better processor a few years from now.
I think this processor development is a very bedrock level move for Apple. And since they control everything, they can exploit this process so that the OS and processor skip merrily along together making everything they expose, snappy and sweet.
Everything they expose is the key concept. They don’t want the iPad to dog in any way, so those potentialities won’t be exposed. Multitasking won’t happen until the processor and the battery life support them.
Multitasking in the OS isn’t the problem, but if it punishes the processor, dings the battery life, and makes the iPad too hot to hold, then it’s not going to happen.
They must want this chip to have a lot of room, because they plan to use it across the product line. Efficiencies of scale for the chip means it’ll probably start showing up in every portable device Apple makes.
So the efficiency of both the chip and battery designs have to progress for the OS to become more complex.
The iPad doesn’t YET do some things I want, but I understand that Apple thinks that the device needs to rock at the things it does, and not do anything that will make the pad run too hot, or too slow.
As a first version of a new product I think it’s pretty damn smart. And the software potentials are fantastic. Just getting FileMaker onto the iPad will open up a world of possibilities.
Even if for the next version or two, you can’t multitask with an iPad.
@128K to Fat Mac to >>> iPad
You’ve hit the nail on the head: “… the device needs to rock at the things it does…”. From all accounts, Apple has accomplished this. Everyone that has touched it comes away with glowing praise for its look, feel and performance.
Joe Hewitt is also right on. Yes, there is a lot of pouting going on for the features left out of v1 iPad, but the real negativity is coming from those most vested in the status quo.
All those that brushing off the iPad as a “big iPod touch” obviously were not paying attention to a few key elements of the presentation. The A-4. Huge! And for those not paying attention: NOT AVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE. And secondly, the iWork apps. Not for themselves, but for the application sophistication possible on the iPad. Do people not recognize the significance of taking the world’s most mundane applications (word processor and spreadsheet) and making them sing on a simple sheet of glass?
Developers like Joe Hewitt see the significance and are no doubt working with the new SDK right now.
Anyone t
I am interested to see how the user base will turn out for the iPad. It definitely won’t be anywhere near the iPhone, so will app sales be of the same magnitude they have been for the iPhone? I feel like apps will become more expensive to make them lucrative enough to create, leading to a lot less app sales. As an iPhone Developer I can’t imagine switching to a platform that makes less money. Should be interesting.
Nice to know that I came to the exact same conclusion on a previous comment, the full potential of the iPad will be recognised in the new software created for it and that new software will empower new developers and will put the fear of God through the monolithic existing software giants. Smaller, flexible and innovative software developers will be at a massive advantage here for some time to come and I suspect that at least one big name of the future will come out of this opportunity.
Andrew,
I think the user base of the iPad will be GREATER than the iPhone!
You can also place an invite option in your application. Try and get all of your friends to add your new app, then prompt them to invite everyone on their friends list and so on and so on. It will also help if your application is pretty cool! lol. Facebook application