iPad

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah, even if you are into the Apple thing, being an early adopter of Apple's current Next Big Thing is an invitation to the blues.

Because they sell the cache of their name and the newness of their premises, they get to sell their first models at prices way above what outside competition would bring their prices eventually down because... no one has had the time to figure out how to make the dang ol' thing in a cheaper more-efficient less-douchey way yet.

[Doc]

Oh yeah, no worries. I've been to this rodeo enough times to know not to buy the first iteration. Besides I don't have the money for it at the moment.

[jaydub]

What this idea needs to do is
1) Replace textbooks
2) Replace notepads

#1 seems relatively straightforward at this point.  I think what #2 will require is handwriting recognition, and something like a word processing app so you can mark up your notes, link key ideas to resources, photos, etc.  I don't think the software exists to do it yet, which seems weird to me.  Note taking (for me) doesn't work well with typing.  I'm a fast typist - that's not the problem - but its not like dictation.  Its nonlinear and associative.  Its Random Access, to borrow a concept, with respect to the work surface.

[Thomas Pain]

I agree with AC there.  

Like the dude was speculating in the interview I posted above, by the end of the year there may well be a web cam.

Apple price points are a form of usury.  

I don't know if it's still the case, but for a while, when you priced out a macbook on the apple store web site, if you chose the black macbook instead of the white macbook, it was an extra $100.  An extra $100 for the same computer with the same options, but in a different color.  WTF is that?!  It was pretty funny, because they had the price of this particular feature obfuscated by bundling it with other features as an "upgrade package," yet at the same time, you could independently select all the features (except the black color) of the upgrade package independently and you wound up with the exact same computer in white instead of black, for $100 less.  

So is Apple withholding features on this thing?  Absolutely.  Is that innovation?  It kind of seems like the anti-thesis to innovation.

Personally I'll wait for Google to come out with a tablet.  

also, I thought that interview was pretty funny.  These dudes discussing this ipad thing as if it were something, of great import.  I mean, there isn't more important stuff going on in the world to talk about? 

Sadly, the ipad is like... kind of a big deal, in terms of innovation.   It's sad that there's only one company on the face of the earth that can innovate.  WTF is up with that?  I mean, Apple brought us the damn GUI for christ sakes.  Since 1984 we been using Apple technology.  Even if you use Windows, you're using Apple technology.

Yeah okay it was Xerox technology, but that's exactly the point I'm making here.  Xerox couldn't hack it.  Xerox had all this innovation handed to them on a silver platter, and Xerox execs had no idea what to do with it.  There only ONE company that's ever done much in the way of innovation when it comes to the consumer experience of personal computers, and that's Apple.  WTF. 

[Doc]

What this idea needs to do is
1) Replace textbooks
2) Replace notepads

#1 seems relatively straightforward at this point.  I think what #2 will require is handwriting recognition, and something like a word processing app so you can mark up your notes, link key ideas to resources, photos, etc.  I don't think the software exists to do it yet, which seems weird to me.  Note taking (for me) doesn't work well with typing.  I'm a fast typist - that's not the problem - but its not like dictation.  Its nonlinear and associative.  Its Random Access, to borrow a concept, with respect to the work surface.

As for 2, I know people who annotate their pdf notes at uni on their laptops and you can draw onto them, put a tablet into the mix and that's as good as paper note taking. I haven't seen writing on a tablet that was decent enough resolution to actually replace pen and paper though.
But yeah, this is basically what I'd want to see it used for.

[Asherdan]

Well, now that this thing is launched...

Are you sleeping well with it, Toaster? Any other developed opinions?

Because Spouse went to work and one of the guys had one and let her put her hands on it. I have been bombarded by an avalanche of "OMG I WANT" texts ever since and...as rotten of a person as I may be...she will win this one if she really wants to.

[smick]

I put hands on one yesterday.   The screen is prettier than what was in my head.   Crisp, deep colors.

It doesn't solve any life problems for me though, that exist between my cellphone and a laptop.

[linear]

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/05/trouble-in-paradise-ipad-users-complain-of-wifi-issues/

How much more cadmium and lithium and petroleum and this and that and carbon and carbon and

does the world need? 

can the world sustain?

If we were trying to conserve resources, we might have less redundancy.. e.g. there might be a simple cell-phone add-on card for your ipad, complete with bluetooth speaker/receiver because obviously who wants to hold an ipad to their face while talking or driving.  But, the free market doesn't make any money unless you've got resources to burn, unless you and the spouse work 40+ hours a week to get those resources.  So what will the free market continue to produce?  Lots of redundant and proprietary cheap plastic crap.  The ipad is great and everything, but, it's not a trinket.  It's $500 friggin dollars, and it's going to wear out in a matter of years, and you're going to want a new one sooner than that.  That $500 recurring payment would be better spent doing something about all the pain and suffering that the world is soon to see from the impending population crisis, let alone all the pain and suffering death and destruction that the world already experiences, much of it in the supply of raw materials for those iPads.  Oh, but you can check your e-mail while lying on your back now, whereas before you used to have to walk over to your laptop sitting on the kitchen table.

[AugustWest]

Perhaps if we wring our hands faster and more earnestly things will improve.

[Asherdan]

Funny, the post that spurred that pap was written by a guy who, as Lecturing Knight (the motto of which is Brotherly Love) and head of community service and lodge activities committees is going to run thousands of dollars and hours of charitable contributions into his community this year.

Wring your hands, indeed.

Saying stuff is a cheap childish cop out, Do Something.

Or get the fuck out of the way.

[linear]

Advocating doing something is more than you're doing with your above post.  It's perhaps revealing that when confronted with the very idea of doing something, you resort to that tried and true fallacy of reasoning cop out of circumventing any possible credibility the idea may have by attacking instead the credibility of the speaker. 

[Asherdan]

CHING CHONG WING WONG you dummy.

[AugustWest]

Smug self-satisfaction will save us all!

[littlefallsmets]

Smug self-satisfaction?

Crap.

I've been running the "using reverse-psychology on divinity" long-con for years.

So many wasted years...

[AugustWest]

Smug self-satisfaction?

Crap.

I've been running the "using reverse-psychology on divinity" long-con for years.

So many wasted years...

Yeah, I tried that for a while.  Then I went with "bemused neglect" for a couple year.  Turns out the solution was there all along, just staring us in the eye (with an obnoxious little smirk on its face).