Okay, so. The iPad sucks, it's an iPod touch XL with a lazily upscaled iPhone OS. It's not what were hoping for. But I haven't seen this theory put out there.
I think the iPad was rushed out from prototype to finished product over the last 3-6 months. It's Apple's hesitant, awkward attempt to please those who demanded a tablet without knowing why they wanted one.
It's pretty obvious Apple has been building prototype tablet devices for years, presumably in the goal of creating the Next Big Thing, the new device that will one day subsume the general purpose computer and the smart phone into the portal that becomes the new model for our interaction with the web, media and each other. Jobs' magnum opus, the one he can go out on. All the rumbling from rumour sites over the years indicates that some people were leaking information about these prototype Jesus Tablets, but the project never got off the ground, presumably because Jobs and the other Apple leadership didn't think they were good enough - not the revolution they wanted, nor clever or useful enough to break out of that space between smartphones and laptops and become a "need" not a "want".
Of course, in the last year those rumours built to a fever pitch, with Apple saying nothing as all of a sudden mainstream media and tech personalities all began assuming a tablet was a sure thing, it was due in 2010, announced at the next Apple event for sure! And of course, seeing as it'd be so absurd to introduce a bigger iPod touch nobody needs, it would be truly magical and clever and revolutionary because how else would Steve allow it to be released?
And so, (I propose), the end of 2009 comes around, and Apple's board is freaking because everyone is staring at the company, waiting for the tablet, waiting for the revolution. But much as it was in 2003, the tablet still sucks. They haven't figured out the next new paradigm for personal computing. Yet, if January rolls around and no tablet arrives, stock declines, sales begin to suffer as people keep waiting and keep waiting, and they're powerless to create hype about the next new iPhone or Mac or iPod revision as it's all tablet, all the time.
So they take one of their so-so prototypes, get the iPhone app team working hard for a few months on a lazy upscaled version of iPhone OS, and put it on hardware that is about as safe, predictable, and unimaginative as their last few iPhone\iPod touch revisions. Schedule late January event, leave two months for mass production. Call it iPad, I guess. Done. Apple tablet is out. It's not what Jobs wanted, it's not what Apple is staking their future on, but they have to pretend it is and hope the real vision of the future can be shoehorned into iPad Rev B or C sometime in the future when it's actually ready.
For now, they have to hope the breathless journalists that a few days ago said "there has to be some special sauce or it will bomb" forget that bit, and instead let it make its mediocre splash into a market that barely wants it and will only sustain a low adoption curve until (Apple hopes) they get their act together and release the truly magical and revolutionary device they have their hearts set on pioneering.
I think that's the story. I can only hope it is, because if what AppleInsider said about Steve being super pleased by the device is true, he's lost the spark.
Discussion about
Apple begrudgingly made what you want. They had to.
I've heard a few comments saying that iPad isn't a large iPhone/iPod Touch, but that the iPad was the eventual goal, but the technology wasn't ready for the large screen; they could use it for a small screen, which led to the creation of the iPod Touch and iPhone.
The only thing I see really missing from this is full multitasking. (And there's apparently a shortage of places to plug in other devices. Can you print from this thing?)
You're definitely not going to use this form factor to take photographs or video. And you wouldn't want to hold it up to your face to make phone calls from it. But a bluetooth or wired headset would work. And the inward facing camera for video calls. But it would have to be there and pointing at an angle. And how many people really look good from the angle this device would be sitting.
The only thing I see really missing from this is full multitasking. (And there's apparently a shortage of places to plug in other devices. Can you print from this thing?)
You're definitely not going to use this form factor to take photographs or video. And you wouldn't want to hold it up to your face to make phone calls from it. But a bluetooth or wired headset would work. And the inward facing camera for video calls. But it would have to be there and pointing at an angle. And how many people really look good from the angle this device would be sitting.
Apple releases products on the time table of one person: Steve Jobs. They aren't going to speed up or slowdown for anyone else.
I don't know, aren't they? Some have suggested the App Store was a caving in to the demands of the market and whiny journalists. Also, Tim Cook likely oversaw a lot of the initial development of this thing (presumably it started early last year.) Combine this with the generally conservative behaviour in just about any product category in the last five years and it's easy to see how a lame, unimaginative device could be pushed out to satisfy a supposed gap in their product line that everyone is clamouring for.
As much as I would like to agree, I simply cannot. I don't believe its rushed or gimped or that Apple messed up. I believe this is the beginning of their vision and they decided to start small so that, once people had it in their hands, they could then go to content providers and say "here, heres the new platform. heres where people are using it. now give us the content." The tablet still does a lot, as much as the ipod touch at least (+3G -phone). Once they work it out, they can drop the price, drop the cost of data rates, offer much more capability-wise, and change the way some people handle the internet. As desktops disappear or get integrated into more devices, the future may be nothing more than laptops and tablets....
Sure, they can start small, but I thought that was the iPhone? Wasn't the iPad meant to take all the ideas of the iPhone and turn them into a compelling tablet product, perhaps good enough to replace a laptop? Now we just have an iPhone that's bigger. Baby steps.
This also supports my idea as the iPad being a stopgap product waiting on the true innovation to come. (To compare, the iPhone was a revolutionary thing from day one and has just evolved since.)
This also supports my idea as the iPad being a stopgap product waiting on the true innovation to come. (To compare, the iPhone was a revolutionary thing from day one and has just evolved since.)
I look at it more like apple fundraising for the release of the real tablet... or the tablet as they see it.... the iPad is simply lacking innovation, to the point where it feels empty and useless....
if you're asking, I don't agree with them starting small. I think its dumb and its all I talk about on here... they played it so safe as to make it seem like the did nothing........
if you're asking, I don't agree with them starting small. I think its dumb and its all I talk about on here... they played it so safe as to make it seem like the did nothing........
Yeah - the thing is, obviously, of all the tech companies in the world, Apple is the furthest from needing to fundraise. The only way I can see this making sense is if the "Real Tablet" is so mindblowingly different they want to ease people into the form factor first.
But again, I'd disagree with that as it softens the impact of what could have been a mindblowing future device...
But again, I'd disagree with that as it softens the impact of what could have been a mindblowing future device...
no company is beyond fundraising or revenue padding... not even Apple. They will get people used to the form factor and usage while making money towards R&D and the contracts necessary to bring content and textbooks and everything else to the far more useful successor......
ask steve-o.... hes the one charging you $500-$830 for an ipod touch and $130 for a 3G chip that costs a little less than jack s**t....
every dollar they don't have to spend is 100% profit. no overhead on that dollar, no risk involved.
I think the main conflict here is the way this product was sold. Apple went way beyond reality with how this was presented and it created a pretty significant backlash amongst people with high hopes.
When the iPhone came out nobody had ever seen anything like it, not because it introduced anything "new" but because it did everything it said it could and did it very very well. Phones existed, sure but dialing into a voicemail number and listening to messages one at a time sucked. Mobile web browsers existed, but mobile IE and mobile Opera are still buggy at best, touch screens certainly existed, but they definitely weren't finger-friendly. None of those things were even half way decent compared to what the iPhone brought to the table in a slender package. (my Treo 750wx was gigantic and it sucked at everything it tried to do.)
The same people who were wowed by the iPhone release, this time, were hoping for something closer to a 10" touch screen macbook that still managed great battery life and a sub $1000 price tag. People were hoping for a device that killed their desire to have any other device. Something that made net-books obsolete and didn't have too much overlap with an already available iPhone.
obviously that didn't happen, what we got is a device that does what your existing iphone does, but with some new toys and a bigger screen... and on top of that it's missing some features because they don't make sense at the new screen size...
So it's not really a "bad" device, it's just no where near what people were expecting, and it's not even close to what apple was saying it was during the presentation. This isn't revolutionary, it's just an initial product entry in a space that still needs to be tweaked to find out what people want and what works in it.
I think the main conflict here is the way this product was sold. Apple went way beyond reality with how this was presented and it created a pretty significant backlash amongst people with high hopes.
When the iPhone came out nobody had ever seen anything like it, not because it introduced anything "new" but because it did everything it said it could and did it very very well. Phones existed, sure but dialing into a voicemail number and listening to messages one at a time sucked. Mobile web browsers existed, but mobile IE and mobile Opera are still buggy at best, touch screens certainly existed, but they definitely weren't finger-friendly. None of those things were even half way decent compared to what the iPhone brought to the table in a slender package. (my Treo 750wx was gigantic and it sucked at everything it tried to do.)
The same people who were wowed by the iPhone release, this time, were hoping for something closer to a 10" touch screen macbook that still managed great battery life and a sub $1000 price tag. People were hoping for a device that killed their desire to have any other device. Something that made net-books obsolete and didn't have too much overlap with an already available iPhone.
obviously that didn't happen, what we got is a device that does what your existing iphone does, but with some new toys and a bigger screen... and on top of that it's missing some features because they don't make sense at the new screen size...
So it's not really a "bad" device, it's just no where near what people were expecting, and it's not even close to what apple was saying it was during the presentation. This isn't revolutionary, it's just an initial product entry in a space that still needs to be tweaked to find out what people want and what works in it.
yep, it is definitely a limited usage device... it will have its purpose but replace nothing...
I'm waiting for it to be waaaaayyy cheaper for what it is....
people are just disappointed that the announcement has passed and nothing has changed... there were devices like this at CES and other indie companies making open devices like this before that.. we are at the same spot now as we were then, theres just a bigger, more expensive ipod touch to consider... if you prefer your media/web to be bigger and less portable, mostly for home use then you are in luck...
I'm waiting for it to be waaaaayyy cheaper for what it is....
people are just disappointed that the announcement has passed and nothing has changed... there were devices like this at CES and other indie companies making open devices like this before that.. we are at the same spot now as we were then, theres just a bigger, more expensive ipod touch to consider... if you prefer your media/web to be bigger and less portable, mostly for home use then you are in luck...
Well, maybe they were more cynical. This product might be "Well, I guess they want a tablet. Let's sell a bunch." rather than "Oh shit, uh, let's try and rush something out because if we show up with nothing we're fucked". i.e., they harnessed the hype instead of managing it away. Either way, it wouldn't be a genuine effort.
I wouldn't get too hung up on my 6 months number, either. I'm sure it's polished, but it's so bereft of clever new UI ideas, and has such a limited range of Apple built applications that I can definitely see the iPhone team rushing out the OS in 6 months, with the associated hardware maybe based on no more than a year of preparation. What's difficult about making this product, for Apple? Seems like nothing, and that's the point. They copied the iPod touch instead of thinking hard about how to make a computer from the future. The A4 architecture\chipset may be the exception here, but there's no reason to think it was something designed for the iPad alone.
I wouldn't get too hung up on my 6 months number, either. I'm sure it's polished, but it's so bereft of clever new UI ideas, and has such a limited range of Apple built applications that I can definitely see the iPhone team rushing out the OS in 6 months, with the associated hardware maybe based on no more than a year of preparation. What's difficult about making this product, for Apple? Seems like nothing, and that's the point. They copied the iPod touch instead of thinking hard about how to make a computer from the future. The A4 architecture\chipset may be the exception here, but there's no reason to think it was something designed for the iPad alone.
"I'm sure it's polished, but it's so bereft of clever new UI ideas"
So you would have liked if they made something completely new, instead of adapting UI principle that they know works very well?
Regardless, there is a lot that's new here. I'm not sure if you've seen videos or anything, but the iPod app on the iPad is nothing like on the Touch. It's much closer to the iTunes app you use on the desktop. The calendar looks gorgeous, is completely different from the iPod app and uses metaphors that would only work on such a form factor. There's even a two-pane Mail viewer that you just couldn't fit on an iPhone but the iPad provides more than enough screen real estate to manage it like you would on a desktop.
Apple obviously found that porting the OS X UI to a 3" screen doesn't work, they probably didn't even need to attempt it to know that's the case. What they did was create something entirely new for the 3" interface, which works very well. With the iPad, they've simply adapted it to a larger screen - made it an intermediary between the Phone and the Laptop.
And you're right, they've done that with the hardware too. Because that's the smart idea. You say they "copied the iPod touch instead of thinking hard about how to make a computer from the future". What if they did think hard about how to do it, and this is what they came up with? What if they did all this thinking before when they developed the iPhone and realised that's how people want to interact with a smaller screen?
99% of the criticism of the iPad is people saying it's nothing too groundbreaking or new. If you ask me, that's a good thing. I see now that your (and others) expectations were to see something you've never seen before. Well, that's not always what makes a good device. They've taken what's good about the phone, taken what's good about the desktop experience and created a device that's a hybrid of the two.
I'm not convinced we need this device, and there's a few things I can see wrong with the platform that has existed since the iPhone 3G, but there's no way I can fault it for "being a big iPod touch" and not surprising me with some stupid futuristic design when there's a perfect baseline to work from already.
So you would have liked if they made something completely new, instead of adapting UI principle that they know works very well?
Regardless, there is a lot that's new here. I'm not sure if you've seen videos or anything, but the iPod app on the iPad is nothing like on the Touch. It's much closer to the iTunes app you use on the desktop. The calendar looks gorgeous, is completely different from the iPod app and uses metaphors that would only work on such a form factor. There's even a two-pane Mail viewer that you just couldn't fit on an iPhone but the iPad provides more than enough screen real estate to manage it like you would on a desktop.
Apple obviously found that porting the OS X UI to a 3" screen doesn't work, they probably didn't even need to attempt it to know that's the case. What they did was create something entirely new for the 3" interface, which works very well. With the iPad, they've simply adapted it to a larger screen - made it an intermediary between the Phone and the Laptop.
And you're right, they've done that with the hardware too. Because that's the smart idea. You say they "copied the iPod touch instead of thinking hard about how to make a computer from the future". What if they did think hard about how to do it, and this is what they came up with? What if they did all this thinking before when they developed the iPhone and realised that's how people want to interact with a smaller screen?
99% of the criticism of the iPad is people saying it's nothing too groundbreaking or new. If you ask me, that's a good thing. I see now that your (and others) expectations were to see something you've never seen before. Well, that's not always what makes a good device. They've taken what's good about the phone, taken what's good about the desktop experience and created a device that's a hybrid of the two.
I'm not convinced we need this device, and there's a few things I can see wrong with the platform that has existed since the iPhone 3G, but there's no way I can fault it for "being a big iPod touch" and not surprising me with some stupid futuristic design when there's a perfect baseline to work from already.
If they thought hard about it and this is what they came up with, they are untalented and unimaginative.
You've just admitted that you are not convinced that you need the device. This a fundamental, huge problem. It doesn't matter if the touch UI conventions of iPhone OS are usable on a 10" screen, or that the iTunes app is nicer, or that the mail app has a side panel. The fundamental, huge problem is that the device has very little purpose or reason for being, a direct result of it being a big iPod touch. You say there's no way to fault it for that because it works, but I don't care if it works - I care if it's useful, and the limited ambit inherent in an iPod touch-alike device means that it is not useful.
And yes, I would like something completely new, or at least very new and clever in its appropriation of existing ideas. Apple can do it. And new is what would be needed to give this idea legs, to push it beyond being as useful as an Archos Whateverthefuck 5000 except with a nice Apple UI, and into the realm of laptop replacement where it could actually be plausibly "revolutionary".
To put it another way, would www.gosammy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/iphone-... have been a satisfactory iPhone? Because that mockup is to the 2006 status quo as the iPad is to the 2009 status quo. It skirts around the edges of existing, ailing UI paradigms and input methods and does nothing to radically improve a product category filled with junk.
You've just admitted that you are not convinced that you need the device. This a fundamental, huge problem. It doesn't matter if the touch UI conventions of iPhone OS are usable on a 10" screen, or that the iTunes app is nicer, or that the mail app has a side panel. The fundamental, huge problem is that the device has very little purpose or reason for being, a direct result of it being a big iPod touch. You say there's no way to fault it for that because it works, but I don't care if it works - I care if it's useful, and the limited ambit inherent in an iPod touch-alike device means that it is not useful.
And yes, I would like something completely new, or at least very new and clever in its appropriation of existing ideas. Apple can do it. And new is what would be needed to give this idea legs, to push it beyond being as useful as an Archos Whateverthefuck 5000 except with a nice Apple UI, and into the realm of laptop replacement where it could actually be plausibly "revolutionary".
To put it another way, would www.gosammy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/iphone-... have been a satisfactory iPhone? Because that mockup is to the 2006 status quo as the iPad is to the 2009 status quo. It skirts around the edges of existing, ailing UI paradigms and input methods and does nothing to radically improve a product category filled with junk.
"You've just admitted that you are not convinced that you need the device. This a fundamental, huge problem."
That, by the way, is a criticism of the tablet form factor, not the iPad specifically. There are a lot of products and product categories out there with very limited markets that people regard as good things and can appreciate how useful it is without getting a barrage of hate - such is the stigma Apple carries (by the way, before anyone calls me a fanboy; I work for one of Apple's direct competitors, so have a vested interest in them failing, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate good technology).
Who knows, maybe I'll change my tune when I touch it for the first time and decide that I can actually fit this device in my life? Apple haven't submitted a use case that appeals to me, apart from maybe a pretty compelling replacement to a newspaper, but that doesn't mean this device has been badly designed, it just means they've created something that is too superfluous to conform to most people's digital lifestyle in 2010 -- that is something we can agree on.
"And yes, I would like something completely new, or at least very new and clever in its appropriation of existing ideas."
Why is this not that? You keep claiming this is nothing new, and now concede that an innovative reimplementation of existing ideas would be sufficient, but what about this UI is not applicable to a tablet computer? What would you do differently? (That's not rhetoric, I'm genuinely interested, because I can't think of too many things myself)
That, by the way, is a criticism of the tablet form factor, not the iPad specifically. There are a lot of products and product categories out there with very limited markets that people regard as good things and can appreciate how useful it is without getting a barrage of hate - such is the stigma Apple carries (by the way, before anyone calls me a fanboy; I work for one of Apple's direct competitors, so have a vested interest in them failing, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate good technology).
Who knows, maybe I'll change my tune when I touch it for the first time and decide that I can actually fit this device in my life? Apple haven't submitted a use case that appeals to me, apart from maybe a pretty compelling replacement to a newspaper, but that doesn't mean this device has been badly designed, it just means they've created something that is too superfluous to conform to most people's digital lifestyle in 2010 -- that is something we can agree on.
"And yes, I would like something completely new, or at least very new and clever in its appropriation of existing ideas."
Why is this not that? You keep claiming this is nothing new, and now concede that an innovative reimplementation of existing ideas would be sufficient, but what about this UI is not applicable to a tablet computer? What would you do differently? (That's not rhetoric, I'm genuinely interested, because I can't think of too many things myself)
Edd,
Well, of course by "new" I don't mean it should come using some kind of optimised invented language for menu dialogues with unique geometrical shapes used in place of rectangles and an OS designed from the ground up based on a brand new kernel and underlying system architecture. From the start I would concede that an "innovative implementation of existing ideas" is sufficient, because anything that doesn't re-use existing ideas is insane. The problem is that Apple ported a lot of stuff that they could have re-imagined.
What I think they should have done is worked really hard on the fundamental UI, the home screen, the basic interaction with your hands and fingers, the concept of zooming into an app card then zooming back out to the home screen. On all these points they were very conservative, porting a home screen and single-app paradigm from the iPod touch because it was easy and worked.
What they should have done was extended and reworked the basic stuff, and got it just right in the way that the iPhone did. It took basic ideas about PDAs and smartphones and worked from the ground up (UI-wise) to create an ideal smartphone UI.
A few ideas:
- Inventive window management. This counts as multitasking more than the classic example of playing Pandora while browsing. So, let's say there's a persistent drawer on the side of the screen that you can pull out and load with documents and information and views - maybe use a five finger gesture to drag the whole screen into the drawer. When using other apps, this drawer can be revealed to compare information side by side or to operate two things at once. It could draw upon quick look, and intelligently start and quit apps to conserve battery. It should abstract the idea of multitasking with an idea about document sharing and display integrated across apps.
- A means of visualising all local computers (and iPads, and iPods, and iPhones) for similar sharing of documents, text and video chat.
- A touch sensor on the back of the device that guesses where you're holding it, allowing for no more bezel (it can predict which fingers are doing holding duty, rather than interacting) and intelligent placement of content on the screen to avoid being obscured by your hands.
- A file system, based on metadata and Spotlight, using new concepts like bundles of data based on people, or content classed by location it was accessed and time of day it was used, etc.
- A way of displaying this information in ways more useful to humans, like automatically gathered "projects" and "based on our analysis, you probably want to open __ right now" sections. No more directory structures, but no more media content stores either - these are computer concepts and should be replaced with more natural and useful metaphors and organisational tools.
This is a vague wishlist but what I want is to feel like they did this work, that they did sit down and think "is this going to work for the next 30 years, is this the best we can do, is the current way the best way". I don't think they thought. They tried making a big iPod touch, and it worked, so they made it a product and released it. I continue to feel that they should have (and may still be trying) to go back to the drawing board, rethink basic computing concepts, and release something more like Litl or the Canon Cat or Sugar or a similar radical UI concept that is so clever that it can indeed make a tablet a product powerful enough that it could seriously eat into the laptop market.
I mean, that would be a lot of work, but so was making the iPhone, and what else have Apple been doing for the last few years since, say, 2004? (Certainly not making dramatic innovations on the OS X front...)
Well, of course by "new" I don't mean it should come using some kind of optimised invented language for menu dialogues with unique geometrical shapes used in place of rectangles and an OS designed from the ground up based on a brand new kernel and underlying system architecture. From the start I would concede that an "innovative implementation of existing ideas" is sufficient, because anything that doesn't re-use existing ideas is insane. The problem is that Apple ported a lot of stuff that they could have re-imagined.
What I think they should have done is worked really hard on the fundamental UI, the home screen, the basic interaction with your hands and fingers, the concept of zooming into an app card then zooming back out to the home screen. On all these points they were very conservative, porting a home screen and single-app paradigm from the iPod touch because it was easy and worked.
What they should have done was extended and reworked the basic stuff, and got it just right in the way that the iPhone did. It took basic ideas about PDAs and smartphones and worked from the ground up (UI-wise) to create an ideal smartphone UI.
A few ideas:
- Inventive window management. This counts as multitasking more than the classic example of playing Pandora while browsing. So, let's say there's a persistent drawer on the side of the screen that you can pull out and load with documents and information and views - maybe use a five finger gesture to drag the whole screen into the drawer. When using other apps, this drawer can be revealed to compare information side by side or to operate two things at once. It could draw upon quick look, and intelligently start and quit apps to conserve battery. It should abstract the idea of multitasking with an idea about document sharing and display integrated across apps.
- A means of visualising all local computers (and iPads, and iPods, and iPhones) for similar sharing of documents, text and video chat.
- A touch sensor on the back of the device that guesses where you're holding it, allowing for no more bezel (it can predict which fingers are doing holding duty, rather than interacting) and intelligent placement of content on the screen to avoid being obscured by your hands.
- A file system, based on metadata and Spotlight, using new concepts like bundles of data based on people, or content classed by location it was accessed and time of day it was used, etc.
- A way of displaying this information in ways more useful to humans, like automatically gathered "projects" and "based on our analysis, you probably want to open __ right now" sections. No more directory structures, but no more media content stores either - these are computer concepts and should be replaced with more natural and useful metaphors and organisational tools.
This is a vague wishlist but what I want is to feel like they did this work, that they did sit down and think "is this going to work for the next 30 years, is this the best we can do, is the current way the best way". I don't think they thought. They tried making a big iPod touch, and it worked, so they made it a product and released it. I continue to feel that they should have (and may still be trying) to go back to the drawing board, rethink basic computing concepts, and release something more like Litl or the Canon Cat or Sugar or a similar radical UI concept that is so clever that it can indeed make a tablet a product powerful enough that it could seriously eat into the laptop market.
I mean, that would be a lot of work, but so was making the iPhone, and what else have Apple been doing for the last few years since, say, 2004? (Certainly not making dramatic innovations on the OS X front...)
I highly doubt this was a 6 month project. Developing the custom processor alone and chipset probably would take about that long anyways. Its not fair to blame the blogs or the media for the hype. Apple constantly lives off this hype, and they typically deliver. They have some of the best PR of almost any modern business and yet somehow they allowed a story to get out in front of them and dictate how their business would be run? Seems like trying to make sense of why the iPad didn't wow instead of what made Apple go in this direction at all.
Exactly. Taking a product all of the way from the design phase to the production phase, especially with a custom chip at its core (nobody thought Apple would get back into the chip-making business) is no trivial matter. I think that the iPad's (still shudder at that name) OS seems half-baked, but suggesting that it's somehow a drastic rush job is unfair to Apple. They just didn't want to mess with a good thing, which I understand, even though it leaves us all disappointed and looking for more.
How dull to complain about the app store and multitasking and video camera and things like that. It's still an iPod touch if it gets all that, and it probably will by the next revision.
What it should have been was a laptop replacement. Not a netbook killer. Conceptually, a new device. Jobs should have said "there is no middle space betweet smartphone and laptop for us to full, we have realised this. Instead, we're going to make a device that can replace many peoples' laptops today, and all of your laptops after our third revision."
It should have featured not "multitasking" in the Windows Mobile\Android\WebOS sense of the word, but a hardcore new multi-finger touch gesture driven UI that made and encouraged sharing between applications, the web, your friends, anything. It should have detected who you are and used information about your location and usage patterns to guess what you wanted to do, and it should have introduced a new way of inputting text, and it should have introduced a new means of managing your content, and it should have generally been a step forward in ways I can articulate and ways I can't but a company paying people to think about this all day could. It could have gathered all sorts of future tech, replaced old paradigms with newly thought out ones. It should have offended internet people like me for being too radical, not for being too conservative - it is supposed to be a new kind of computer.
But, it's an iPod scaled up. Hardware and software. That's barely a new line of product.
The thing I think Apple really wants to make is a prototype of the computer we will all use in 2020. Apple wants to be first, define the experience, and watch Microsoft and the other manufacturers try and keep up.They want to make the thing that replaces laptops in the future. This isn't it - we're still in early 2007, and either Apple are planning it for later with iPad as a stopgap, or they've lost their ability to innovate on a grand scale.
What it should have been was a laptop replacement. Not a netbook killer. Conceptually, a new device. Jobs should have said "there is no middle space betweet smartphone and laptop for us to full, we have realised this. Instead, we're going to make a device that can replace many peoples' laptops today, and all of your laptops after our third revision."
It should have featured not "multitasking" in the Windows Mobile\Android\WebOS sense of the word, but a hardcore new multi-finger touch gesture driven UI that made and encouraged sharing between applications, the web, your friends, anything. It should have detected who you are and used information about your location and usage patterns to guess what you wanted to do, and it should have introduced a new way of inputting text, and it should have introduced a new means of managing your content, and it should have generally been a step forward in ways I can articulate and ways I can't but a company paying people to think about this all day could. It could have gathered all sorts of future tech, replaced old paradigms with newly thought out ones. It should have offended internet people like me for being too radical, not for being too conservative - it is supposed to be a new kind of computer.
But, it's an iPod scaled up. Hardware and software. That's barely a new line of product.
The thing I think Apple really wants to make is a prototype of the computer we will all use in 2020. Apple wants to be first, define the experience, and watch Microsoft and the other manufacturers try and keep up.They want to make the thing that replaces laptops in the future. This isn't it - we're still in early 2007, and either Apple are planning it for later with iPad as a stopgap, or they've lost their ability to innovate on a grand scale.
You think it was rushed? I personally won't be getting one, because I think the jury's still out on whether people actually need this device, but those people that do need it I think will find this is the most perfect implementation of the tablet form factor produced thus far.
Even if this particular prototype was created in just 6 months - which is ludicrous - they would still have had the years of experimentation with other prototypes you also claim they've developed. I doubt they would let anything that isn't completely polished out of their clutches - and they've resisted the urge to do that annually for the past 8 years if you date the rumours all the way back.
If they did feel pressure from the industry to release one, I don't think they had any shortage of great designs and ideas from so many years of experimenting. Some might say they are releasing this product a year too early, but maybe they're actually genuine about wanting to open up a new product space? Just maybe? :)
And also; something I've been asking a lot of people who complain about the iPad being just a large iPod Touch: "Why is that a BAD thing?". I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why it doesn't meet your expectations (and what your expectations actually are) because the only criticisms I can conjure for it are the lack of multi-tasking (well, full multitasking anyway) and the inherent semi-closedness of the App Store. A front-facing camera would have been nice for iChat, but that would just be a bonus.
(Note that I haven't used the device so my assertion that this is a great device could be wrong -- nor have you, for the record :) )
Even if this particular prototype was created in just 6 months - which is ludicrous - they would still have had the years of experimentation with other prototypes you also claim they've developed. I doubt they would let anything that isn't completely polished out of their clutches - and they've resisted the urge to do that annually for the past 8 years if you date the rumours all the way back.
If they did feel pressure from the industry to release one, I don't think they had any shortage of great designs and ideas from so many years of experimenting. Some might say they are releasing this product a year too early, but maybe they're actually genuine about wanting to open up a new product space? Just maybe? :)
And also; something I've been asking a lot of people who complain about the iPad being just a large iPod Touch: "Why is that a BAD thing?". I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why it doesn't meet your expectations (and what your expectations actually are) because the only criticisms I can conjure for it are the lack of multi-tasking (well, full multitasking anyway) and the inherent semi-closedness of the App Store. A front-facing camera would have been nice for iChat, but that would just be a bonus.
(Note that I haven't used the device so my assertion that this is a great device could be wrong -- nor have you, for the record :) )
