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Jan 28
2010
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iPad - lots of hits and a few misses?Posted by: Philip Roy on Jan 28, 2010   |
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I have to stress that I'm writing this as I see the news come in about the iPad. Some of the things I might comment on may be due to the fact that I haven't researched enough. I'm really impressed by the iPad, disappointed also...and a bit surprised. I'll start with the disappointment. Adobe Flash. It's evident Apple's out to make sure that Flash isn't part of their platforms these days. Regardless of what sort of processor this thing has, it could, I speculate, handle Flash easily.
Surprise? No forward facing camera (oh, and no multitasking). I was sure a camera was a certainty. Why? Well this thing is going to be an absolute gem for the education sector, and a forward facing camera would make a superb device to give to kids to go off and hold video conferences...or heck, call back to the teacher whilst they are out and about surveying students in school, etc. I could have even seen myself telling my folks to ditch their Mac mini in favour of an iPad, but not now. The second surprise...where does this leave apps versus applications? I'll expand on this a bit more later.
The good news is that it looks amazing...and Apple have yet again shown that when the produce a product they think of it holistically...the whole concept for them isn't just the iPad, but everything that surrounds it...how to buy music, how to buy books, how to view them just looks amazing...and the fact that they have tied them back into the iPhone OS is clever. Just watch how beautiful the user interface is in the Apple videos on the product.....absolutely stunning.
However one of the words I have to disagree with is the term "revolutionary" that is used by Apple in the video. And the people to blame? Apple.
Look at the iPad, watch the video and hear about what they are talking about...in many instances Apple have done those things for the iPhone already. I'm not trying to suggest it isn't an amazing product....just that Apple have been doing these amazing things already.
Now on to applications...this is where I get a bit confused. What constitutes an app for the iPad is slightly blurred with what constitutes an application on a Mac...and the best example of that is the iWorks apps that they have announced for the iPad. Don't get me wrong....superb idea...but I'm curious as to how that is going to work. Where will you save your documents? Do you have a hard drive partition that you put stuff on or is it all contained within the app like the iPhone OS apps? I suspect the latter....and maybe you sync with your Mac?
And let's think about this...Apple have just announced a spreadsheet, word processor and presentation app that runs on the iPad. Will they run on the iPhone too? OK, I know that's probably a silly question, but they've taken a little bit of Mac and added it into the iPhone OS. So can others take a little bit of Mac too?
What about Microsoft for example? Will they now produce a version of Office for the iPad? Will they be allowed to publish it by Apple? And if they are, can we have those things on the iPhone too? Seriously....I mean it!
I suspect that I'm never going to be able to do the thing I would want to do...take apps from my Mac and put them on the iPad. Instead, I'm going to have to wait for those to developers to bring out an iPad version of their product and pay for that version. I guess, if I'm honest, I'm not confused about apps versus applications...I just hoped for a bit more freedom with a tablet than what I see.
And how do you print? Can you print? Do you need a Mac or PC to be able to do this? Can you plugin a printer or do you use wifi? Is this more an addition to your computer experience than anything? Is it for those that want something additional to what they use already...or it it a standalone product?
I guess what I am saying is that I have been more than happy that the iPhone was effectively a closed system...and you had one way (sans jail breaking) of getting things on the iPhone and using them. With the Mac, it's more open. Whilst I fully understand that the iPad will be more closed (and iPhone like) than open...part of me wishes it wasn't. Part of me wishes that it gave the user more freedom. Time will tell as to whether this impacts them or not. Whilst a beautiful, superb looking product, when you get this into the education sector (of which I believe Apple will hope to see significant sales in) will they gradually move back to more open systems they can do more with...or will they happily stick with the iPad? I suggest the results will be both.
I guess, putting it crudlely...it feels more like a bloody big iPod Touch with a cool new UI and apps, than a tablet....and I feel it is missing a few things or possibly being too restrictive to get it nearer to where a tablet should be.
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Philip Roy
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MacRumours suggests a shared mountable folder will be the way you get at files.... http://www.macrumors.com/2010/...titasking/ |
Darryn Lowe
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Scroll to the bottom of this page and you'll see what the camera support bit is for: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ Clue: Second accessory. |
Philip Roy
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How does an accessory that lets you import images equate to (as you see in the AppleInsider article) a suggestion that the software lets you "Take" a photo? Either they may bring in the option to use an external camera live (which isn't what the accessory you point is for...and in which case, yuck) or the possibility they dropped or will add in later an inbuilt camera. Phil |
Darryn Lowe
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Here's what the article says: Though the iPad, introduced by Apple Wednesday, does not include a camera, the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK "simulator" for creating software hints the shipping product could support a camera in some fashion."In some fashion" does not necessarily equate to "iPad is going to get a camera". There's nothing to say that that "Take Picture" doesn't also mean "Take from Photo Library" or "Take from device". If you actually look at the button that triggers that it's actually called "Add Photo". Here's the likely scenario, the aforementioned accessory would conceivably be used to connect a camera to the iPad via USB and by use of tethering take photos. To be honest I would prefer this method than a camera attached to the shipping product. I mean do you know how much of a knob you'd look like taking photos with a 10" camera? No, it makes more sense that it will support USB camera tethering or even Bluetooth camera tethering in order to take the photos in which case you can use ANY camera therefore make your library worthy of the device. It will either do it with the camera accessory shown or it will do it with an attachable to-be-released camera similar to say the iSight. Either way it won't involve a 10" camera. |
Philip Roy
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So "Take Photo" on this next example means "Take photo from library"? Wonder what "Choose existing photo" then means? When have you known Apple to use terminology like "Take Photo" to mean use an existing one? http://9to5mac.com/iPad-camera...ls-3546435 http://www.engadget.com/2010/0...lit-views/ |
Darryn Lowe
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Yeah okay I'll give you that one only because the image on the first one didn't show up the second option. That being said though it's still not indicative of the iPad getting a camera built in. It's an SDK so anything can be done. I still think it's ridiculous to expect a camera in a device like this. No, I think the camera part of the SDK is going to be with regards to hardware add-ons via the Dock Connector and/or iPhone tethered shooting because that's the only thing that makes sense. |
CraigStanton
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I'm pretty sure the older SDK provided the ability to pick from camera or library no matter what your device is. It was up to the programer to determine if the device had a camera or not (e.g. iPod Touch). I suspect it is the same deal here. Since the new SDK still runs on iPhones they won't remove the "Take a picture" (with your camera) ability, it is still up to the programmer to disable it. That being said I'm not buying one of these until they do come with a camera (and GPS without the extra $130 for 3G connectivity). It'll probably happen in V2 so I'll just wait. |
Philip Roy
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Yeah I think a lot of people haven't noticed the lack of GPS in the wifi-only models. Phil |
CraigStanton
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Worse still is Stuff.co.nz's assertion that it doesn't have real GPS, only positioning from cell-towers. There's no comments allowed on that article but I found an email address to explain assisted-GPS to them http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/3272356/Busting-the-iPad-hype |
Darryn Lowe
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Stuff's assertion is wrong... possibly. The iPhone has assisted GPS as well. When a GPS signal isn't available it uses cell towers to triangulate relative position. There's nothing untoward at all. The problem is that Apple was only introducing the iPad not going into details. We don't know what OS it is running, we don't know what the final specs are and therefore the speculation as to what the GPS capabilities of the iPad are are speculative at best. It's been because of the rumours that the iPad has been perceived to be a let down but those who believed all the rumours as opposed to picking out the rumours that sound like what Apple would actually do deserve to be let down because their gullible. Sooner or later people will work out for themselves what makes sense as opposed to blindly going along with rumours. I'll address these issue on Sunday. :-) |
Philip Roy
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And more goss on whether a camera was meant to be in the iPad... http://www.macrumors.com/2010/...or-camera/ |
CraigStanton
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GPS confirmed I've had it confirmed that the GPS in the device is a full GPS. The 'assisted' part matches the usual definition of 'assisted' and the GPS part does indeed mean data-from-the-satellites. The only part the 3G data connection plays is to get the almost instant first-fix, which then hits to the GPS module where in the world it is, to within a few kilometers, and then the GPS module will know which satellites to listen to (there are about 28 I think and picking which ones are the closest takes a while). |
Philip Roy
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And when you say "device", do you mean both versions or just the one with 3G connectivity...sorry, I think you mean the latter, but we need to be clear. Perhaps explaining who confirmed it might be useful also. Phil |
CraigStanton
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Yes, definitely only the models with 3G. The "wifi only" models have no GPS at all. They *might* be able to do what the original iPhone does with WiFi stations and guessing your location from that, but that's rubbish here in NZ and mostly rubbish anywhere that I'd actually want location information. It was confirmed by an Apple employee, speaking on behalf of Apple. Name I don't recall, but he was very clear on it, and repeated it a few times as each person clarified it in their own way. |
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