MacDailyNews Take: We haven’t had a drop to drink today, yet, nor did we the first time we said it on iPad unveiling day (in-between we make no claims), so we have no problem typing the following yet again, in bold: “This first iPad is going to be a smash hit.”
Johnson continues, “Nerds of 2040 will sigh and rattle off any number of previous computers if someone makes that [“iPad was the first real computer”] claim. But even those nerds will have to concede that the iPad marked the beginning of appliance computing, when physical devices and interfaces receded into the background and touch gave us an entirely new intimacy with our information.”
“Automobiles had been around for 30 years before Henry Ford put together the first Model T,” Johnson writes. “Those previous attempts at a mass-market car were critical to Ford’s success, but it’s Ford we remember.”
Johnson writes, “The iPad isn’t the most capable machine out there. It’s not a multitasker.”
MacDailyNews Take: Whoops. iPad, like every single iPhone and iPod touch that’s ever shipped, is a multitasker. It simply doesn’t yet allow for multitasking by third-party apps. Listen to your iPod while surfing the web and you’re multitasking. With iPhone 4.0, Apple will usher in multitasking for third-party apps, along with much more. It will be available as a software update to iPhone and iPod touch users this summer and a version of iPhone OS 4 will be coming to iPad this fall.
Johnson continues, “But the iPad’s limitations are also its strength. Because they’re uniform across the platform, developers can work with and around them. The same kind of uniformity has allowed video game consoles to stay competitive with—and sometimes eclipse—more-powerful gaming hardware… The iPad won’t be all things to all people. Those of us who need raw power will still have our Macs and our PCs and our mainframes for years to come. But I think we’ll find that dainty two-stroke computers like the iPad are surprisingly versatile.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
@C1
“The only reason you haven’t been able to get a grip on this is your own lack of imagination.”
I see the snark in you is rather high today.
@Uh-huh
Although I do not have an iPad, I believe the point is not that it offers something a desktop or notebook cannot, but that it does them different and more efficiently. Yes, you can read e-books on a notebook, iPad is better. Yes you can review photos, iPad is better (well, according to the supremely biased C1). Yes, you can lug your notebook around, the iPad is easier. Etc.
In real-life usage, all the small things that it does better or more efficiently add up, every hour, every day, every week/month/year. I am seriously looking at the iPad (damn that triple-dog dare) for the future of everyday use, including when handwriting analysis gets up to speed–it will become my legal pad and so much more.
I still think you knew this. You were just being a contrarian for the sake of it. You need to feel it in your soul though
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I prefer Starmap to Starwalk. But then, I don’t have a fancy iPad or even a 3GS, so no compass for me…
@ Uh-huh
I have to echo the others. Thin and elegant and delicious do count. The iPad is a handling device, not limited to a lap or desk. I’ve had mine for seven days. I’ve loaded no apps or games or music, . . . but I have loaded over five-thousand pix, and some video from a Flip Ultra. Holding this device and showing one’s creations is a very special feeling.
The UI is special, as well. When you scroll (with inertia) you do it by actually touching the items. When you touch an insertion window that instantly pulls up the keyboard, it is nearly imperceptibly seductive that you don’t need to move your hands down to a different space to use it, and then return to the face of the device for further input. Even the touch-keyboard conventions that shortcut typing are a distinct advantage.
The combination of SOC and SSD makes the device extremely responsive. A laptop seems clunky after using this for just a couple of days.
And battery life! I used mine moderately for five days. When I finally recharged it still showed 50% life available.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of the capabilities already present on the iPad, and you have to know that Apple will improve even this device with updates in software.
No, an iPad cannot truly replace a laptop. In fact, mine has spurred me on to actually purchasing my first laptop. But you mustn’t scoff an iPad. That’s a bit like scoffing a Cadillac.
I hope you also see that I didn’t need to call you names or insult to make solid points. . . . Your question was valid.
The assertion that the iPad is the first real computer is just wrong. End of discussion. Nothing to see here. Move along.
About multitasking: a clock/timer that could multitask, as on the iPhone, would be welcome.
I’m an iPad lover and first-day buyer, but here is one annoying thing it can’t do: I want to fall asleep to the iPod application, say listening to music or a podcast.
No can do. The “auto-lock” feature might seem to be the answer but it isn’t user-settable like a sleep clock timer type thing.
Please someone tell me how to set the iPad to go to sleep after 1/2 hour, if you know better. I have Googled up and down for a third party app, seems to be impossible, due to the multitasking limitation.
Other than that small detail, which should be fixable with 4.0, I am love, love, loving the thing.
My favorite app: Netflix streaming.
If you work in a big office, just walk around for a few minutes.
Watch how people use their laptops. It’s hilarious. First off, a laptop isn’t really that portable. It really requires that you be seated to use it effectively. Watch how people leave meeting rooms when you’re at work. They come out with a variety of poses…
From the ‘painter’s palette’, slung over one arm while the other works the track pad…
Then there’s the ‘almost closed’, an attempt to not look like a complete fool yet not put the machine to sleep.
I saw one woman grab the top edge of the screen and pick it up, carrying her laptop hanging down in one hand with a pile of papers in the other.
A laptop might be portable, but it’s not very USABLY portable. It’s just a small desktop machine that you an carry, and it requires that you have a place to ‘set up shop’ with your power adapter and stuff.
So say you’re looking for a house party (let’s pretend, for a moment, Uh-huh, that you have friends and they, inexplicably, invited you over to their new place). They sent you their address in an email. Do you print it out before you leave? Maybe, if you didn’t forget to. Do you look it up on your iPhone? Great idea, and it works pretty well! Do you look it up on your laptop? Most laptops don’t have cell network access, so you need to be close to WiFi or have a 3G/4G card, so that’s no good driving around. Even if you are connected, is it easy to see your laptop from any kind of driving position? But on the iPad, it’s just like looking at a paper map. No folding box to try to pick up, no trackpad to have to use to scroll around… just a flat map in your hand, with a little moving blue dot that tells you where you are. It’s also connected to that email they sent you.
But if you’re a photographer (you might be one some day, Uh-Huh, if you practice and study hard) there is simply no better way to show your images. None. Not one ever. It’s better than a laptop in every conceivable way as a portfolio viewer, and you’ll find that it captures the interest of people wherever you show it off.
I’ve had laptops. No one ever cared about them. Images are images, but the presentation counts when you’re trying to get people interest and hold it.
Imagination. Uh-huh. That’s what it’s about.
@wetfx
I agree about the iPad not being a complete desktop or computer replacement–yet. How long though, until it does? One year? Two? Not much more than that, I think.
@ Contrarian
I have not yet begun to snark.
Oh Lord, if this is your baseline before snark sets in…(runs for cover)
@Vatdoro
“Stop hating on Apple and just admit they’ve done an amazing job with the iPad.”
Criticism is not hate. And I will never admit anything, for I am…male. Seriously, I will agree that Apple has done a great job. Amazing? That praise is too high.
@ Contrarian
Daa . . . Dummph! Daa . . . Dumnphh.
You better believe she hasn’t!
I know a lot of people with laptops. I know very, very few of them (okay, none) that have their laptops with them all the time.
For the last couple of weeks, that’s exactly where the iPad has been. On my person, or very near by, at all times. Laptops simply can’t do this. They’re just a bit too big and heavy and impractical. And if you do take it everywhere with you, you look like a LAN-party enthusiast. You can carry an iPad around with you everywhere you go, and it’s no different from carrying a small book or magazine. You have to make very few allowances for it.
Uh-Huh-
Dude get a effing grip, just flinging (adolescent) personal insults at someone who has bested your argument intellectually makes you look like a barely post-pubescent twit. (though perhaps we have some insight here)
@theloniousMac
Conclusions are fine and good, but not particularly helpful. Why isn’t the iPad the first real computer, in your opinion?
I don’t have to agree with the author to agree that the iPad is a first for many things at finally doing them right and all together. Just like the iPod was not original in its content offering, but it was in the way it delivered the content to the user, and made listening to music easier just plain…better.
I still want a portable 8 track player.
C1:
But nothing beats the older laptops that had the ejectable built in cup holders
@ Rosswell
RE: Netflix streaming….
This app has changed my life like few others have. A confluence of events led to a drastic change in my entertainment habits. The first of which was my Sony surround sound system going out. Some awful power supply problem that killed the thing. So I removed it (and will never buy another Sony product, btw). When I got my iPad, I cancelled digital cable as soon as I realized that Netflix (and ABC and if we’re lucky Hulu..) had thousands of shows and movies I wanted to watch and cable still had 60 channels of nothing. So no more being tied to the living room.
Something miraculous happened… I started watching programs when I wanted to, where I wanted to. That meant here at my desk in the office, in the kitchen, out on the back patio, by the fire pit at night, at the coffee shop, the bar… I have hardly been in my living room since. The TV hasn’t been on once.
That’s the streaming part… but I still get DVDs in the mail, which I immediately rip with RipIt and Handbrake and send right back, keeping the turnover going efficiently.
Now there is still a piece missing… I don’t have Apple TV so I currently have no way to easily get this streaming content to a bigger screen for use with more than one person, so watching movies with friends at parties still relies on old-fashioned plastic discs… but it’s certainly made me POSITIVE that I’d rather buy an Apple TV than a BluRay player. No more boxes full of plastic for me.
Cup holder. . . . Not bad.
Maybe I could market one, . . . with a side-pocket for French fries.
I’ve got that “covered!” (MDN word)
@Rosswell:
The $0.99 Night Stand HD app lets you put your iPod music on a sleep timer. It also allows you to set a different screen lock time while the app is open. If you are using it as an alarm clock (like I do every day) it will still work even if the iPad is locked. It’s one of my favorite apps.
PS – I also agree about Netflix being awesome. It would be nice if they changed the interface though so that it didn’t feel like you were simply browsing the web site. Feels a bit too slow the way it is now. But once you start playing video, it looks gorgeous.
Poor boys, clinging to their laptops like they were lifebelts in dangerous waters.
It looks like keyboards and mice will become less and less essential, even for desktop machines. I can see magazine and print layout being done on “big-ass tables” for one thing. Much more logical to move photos and other elements around by hand. The table would be at an angle, like old drawing-tables used to be, not flat. Keyboards would be for the writers, most of them would use iPads of course, like the photographers. Although many local reporters have to do both jobs now I hear, plus video clips!
@ Jimithy
I also use Nightstand, but beware! No 3rd party multitasking currently means that even if you set an alarm, the app has to be running or the alarm won’t work! I’ve tested this!
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That said, you can indeed put the iPad to sleep, just be sure that Nightstand is running when you do!
OK… I have had my “illegal” (not in Oz yet) iPad for a while and whether I walk int an official Apple Retail store, a “value added shop”, a (ready for this) PC supply shop (bought some 1 TB drives there) – if I pull out my iPad, it creates an instant “want to see, touch, have” sensation.
I have used it to give very good one-on-one Keynote presentations that closed the sale – quite easily and the client then said that he was going to buy an iPad for him and each of his staff (he does not see a need for the iPhone (but we all know what will happen here). And the guy is 60 (younger than me but not as geeky).
When the iPad went on pre-order here the first weeks allotment was sold out in 2 days.
Revolutionary? Beyond any of our imaginations!
I had one of the first Macs in Arizona in 1984 and a Lisa before that… and THIS little device is beyond real words.
I use it all of the time. It sits beside my MacPro and dual 30″ Monitors. I find I check my mail with it – because it is easier.
If I want to sketch something – I grab my iPad and pogo sketch (who says you can’t use a stylus) and do some very precise drawing – in a coffee shop – no less.
@ C1 – you are in the magnetosphere of wit today – keep it coming!
Cheers from Oz.
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@C1:
While I love my AppleTV, it’s not the end-all solution for getting video to the TV, unless your entire video library is Quicktime-compatible. That really is my only complaint about Quicktime: the lack of video format support. I have a lot if video that’s been ripped into the Divx family of formats, which (while Quicktime on my Mac has been given a plug-in to play) my AppleTV cannot play. I hate to admit that I use my Xbox360 to stream most of my video content from my Mac, and keep the AppleTV for video rentals (still the best device for that) and streaming music at parties.
@C1: Hah, yes I also noticed that about Night Stand. It occurs to me that they could (partially) fix the problem with push notifications. Now, you won’t be able to wake to your own music or anything, but surely they could push a nice, calming alarm buzzer
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“But if you’re a photographer (you might be one some day, Uh-Huh, if you practice and study hard) there is simply no better way to show your images. None. Not one ever. It’s better than a laptop in every conceivable way as a portfolio viewer, and you’ll find that it captures the interest of people wherever you show it off.
I’ve had laptops. No one ever cared about them. Images are images, but the presentation counts when you’re trying to get people interest and hold it.”
Great Post…. I just started “fooling around” in 1978 ya know. For my birthday I got a A-1 for my birthday. Soon after I got a complete darkroom setup with an old Durst enlarger. At the time, it worked well, and I generally shot 3 or 4 rolls of Tri-X (ASA 400) everyweek in my spare time. I would develop 1 roll at a time at first in my original (black plastic single roll) daytank. Later, my parents bought me a 3 roll stainless tank with a winder. Really nice…. Saved me a lot of money because I could mixup a batch of Microdol-X and use it on 3 rolls, … really neat??? What kind of Developer do you like Chrissy1????
I wouldn’t always print everything (same reason, get a lot of film processed and then print a bunch at one time. And could print a bunch with 1 mix of Dektol).. I used to do the same with paper Chrissy1 – – – I’d buy 8 1/2 X 11 and cut them into 4’s so I could print 4X6)…
Hey, after I did it for a few years, I started shooting higher speed film (like 800 or 1000 ASA)… I used to like the grainy effect I would get – – especially when used with a high contrast paper (Like Kodak F-4 or F-5)…. I used to shoot a lot of bands this way and loved the results….
Sometimes it’s possible to get really cool effects like shooting high speed film and not having the strobe go off.. I can remember one time when my strobe died and I shot all night at F8 and 1/250 and hoped for the best. The effect was great, the boys illuminated by just the stage lights.
Well there’s no use carrying on this conversation any further because neither I (nor anyone else) will ever approach your great skills as a photographer (especially since you have an iPad now).,… I’ll tell you what though, I’m going to guess that my photography skills will “interest people” just as much as anything you have ever done, and I’ll do it with a 30 year old Canon manual camera and a lot of skill in the darkroom .. My B&W;darkroom..
Call me unimaginative, but I still fail to see how someone with adequate mobile computing (iPhone) and portable home or office computing (laptop) would have any use for an iPad that they would have to carry around with them. Sure it’s light, but it’s still a pretty big piece of equipment to take with you wherever you go, and for what? To show people pictures? Is that all anyone can think of? At home, I like to use a desk to work on, and I don’t want to lean over to type and see the screen and become the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
I don’t deny the impressive sales figures, but I’m still waiting for something you can do on the iPad that makes me think “I’m missing out.” I know a few people with iPads and while they claim to love it, I don’t see them really using for anything they couldn’t do with their laptop and iPhone, and they have to lug around an extra piece of equipment. I suspect many sales are from people like this – they have money, they see a new Apple product, and they have to get it, and they have to love it.