Please don't take this as being too critical, but I used my bread-maker every other day for 2 weeks after buying it. I can't remember the last time I got it out the cupboard.
There's at least one big difference. You probably didn't make bread before and now aren't making bread without the bread maker, while the iPad lets people do what they're already doing all the time, better: looking at pictures, watching youtube, browsing facebook, reading email, etc.
Does the iPad youtube app work, by the way? I can't remember a time where my iPhone's youtube app has successfully streamed an entire video down without dying at some random point (over wifi - 3G seems to work but the quality is abysmal).
How do you get it to load the HD versions? I'm seeing 720p and 1080p versions on my Mac but looking at the quality of the video on my iPad it looks like it streams the 360p version.
That said, I've never had an issue with my iPhone's youtube app either, so I don't know if there's something fundamentally different about my network and yours.
The article makes it sound like much more than a novelty.
I don't have an iPad yet, but I do use my Cuisinart bread-maker twice a week to make delicious and substantial wholewheat bread for way less than you would pay at a store.
The money and the taste is all well and good, but the real reason I kept using mine (until I started travelling): the smell. Waking up in a house that smells like fresh baked bread is just heaven.
Tip: Use the bread-maker (or a heavy-duty mixer with dough hook) to save time on the initial mixing and kneading, but do the remaining steps by hand -- it's much more satisfying, and once you practice a bit, you'll get better bread. You'll spend a little more time, but it's worth it.
Do you really need a bread maker for the initial kneading? It's the same as why a bike is faster than a car. You can either cycle 20 minutes, or drive 10 minutes and spend 20 minutes exercising. Doing it by hand takes maybe 5 minutes longer, but you save 10 minutes exercising.
The very best homemade bread I make is the no knead bread -- it's as easy to make and clean up after as using a bread machine (you just need a bit of time).
I don't think that is being critical at all. I think the iPad looks very interesting, but I am also waiting to see how its use settles over time.
Honestly, though, looking at some of ways I've seen people using them in the very short time since its release leads me to think it is going to be a likely purchase in the near future.
I know your point is actually about novelty and I fully agree with that however the bread maker analogy is kind of funny because a bread maker actually takes a simple task, obtaining bread, and makes it more complex than the alternative of buying bread someone else has baked. They even slice it for you. Making your own bread has a lot of advantages -- freshness, customization, variety. Yet most people just buy bread because it's easier.
Comparing sliced bread to a breadmaker is like comparing a television to an iPad. Sliced bread is really nothing special. Let me rip off a chunk of bread fresh out of my oven any day of the week.
I was worried about the same thing before I got my iPhone... sure I used it more when I first got it because of the novelty, but since it is actually incredibly useful I still use it all the time.
A bread-maker isn't the same because it only does one thing. It makes bread. An iPad/iPhone does a million things and I am still discovering new ways to use my iPhone.
Now whether the same kind of usability translates from the iPhone to the iPad is yet to be seen, and I'm a little skeptical if only because of the reduced portability, but it is hardly on the same level as your bread-maker.
The same bread-maker argument could be made for a laptop, or a PC, or any number of things
The only thing you can do with a bread maker is make bread. With an ipad, you can connect with your social network, read, play tons of games, watch almost anything, just be constantly online. And maybe, someday, we'll be able to use it to make bread as well.
Since I got a bread machine on a whim, I make a loaf about every week, and I freeze half so I don't have to throw away mouldy bread. I couldn't imagine buying supermarket loaves - even fresh bakery ones. And there's something nice about the 10 minutes it takes to prepare the ingredients, and then it just cooks and fills the house with the bread aroma.
Oh, and I sold my Kindle after 1 month as I prefer to read paper books and they're cheap.
So some gadgets have a 'useful' use, and some aren't really necessary.
You should have bought a rice cooker they are a lot more useful. I suspect the ipad-laptop usability will appear in a bit, but I don't think it will be as bad as bread-makers.
I bought a 16gb iPad the week after they came out. I didn't really have a need for it, I just wanted to see if it was interesting. I had a very simliar experience as the author.
My wife has little but distain for my gadget obsession, but within minutes she wanted one for herself. Our three-year-old adores it. I put some educational games and cartoons on it, and she can get to it all on her own. Literally every person I've shown it to has wanted one.
Want one is the keyword. I've played with my coworkers iPad quite a bit and can see how it could fit into my life. But at the same time its not a need - not in the way I need my smartphone. Its a big shiny toy that I want but only when its convient.
Still, Apple's good at making stuff people both want _and_ use. I didn't expect my mother to start using Mail and Safari on her iPhone. I only bought it for her so she could have a phone+ipod, and because she never figured out how to use T9.
I've been using it, and I think the reason people like it is because of its obvious portability and accessibility. Internet is nice and all, but it is being able to watch netflix at the gym, kindle during the commute and have all my files through dropbox that really cut it for me.
- It's gonna destroy the culture of content creation.
- Fine if you don't need to get real work done.
- Only fanboys will buy one.
- Give me a netbook so I can program.
- People who are buying iPads are sheep.
- It would not sell if it weren't for the marketing.
- Sure it's selling well now, but what about in 6 months/1 year/2 years …
- Sure it's selling well now, but no true intelligent scotsman …
- Just a toy.
- I can't believe people are buying this without being able to articulate why.
- Look, someone says they stopped using it! I was right.
- No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
28 days and $1,000,000,000 in revenues later, still reasons Apple doesn't give a flying frack about, and maybe a sign that some of us should reevaluate how much we know about the buying habits of the non-comic book guys, and that there might be something there that warrants more than a knee jerk cmdrtaco response.
All of the above are good points that can be exploited by competing products, i am not sure why you are suggesting that apple should close its eyes on this!
I will never buy a second iPhone, i will look for a good Android based phone, and using the same logic i will wait for a good iPad like product from HP or HTC
If people are in the market (or simply want) a tablet-sized computing device, they're going to have the iPad at the front of their mind. If they play with one at an Apple Store or at a friend's house and aren't convinced (or are pissed it doesn't run Flash) then they will fall into Category B which is where a dozen or more companies will compete.
You basically have the iPad, and everything else, just like for music players there's the iPod and then everything else. Features on a comparison matrix don't get consumers excited. The iPad has a LOT of people excited.
The problem is you a) sound like an anti-fanboy and b) like a tech person (as we all probably are here).
For a "man on the street" the iPad "rocks". All the drawbacks are technical gripes - stuff we will notice and complain about but the majority of people will never consider/come across.
We all know it could be better in many ways and more open etc. they don't.
Also, the UI is stellar and will sell it to people.
It is a device to show your girlfriend some stupid clips from youtube and pictures from 4chan to get laid more smoothly. =) It is a consumer device, not a computer or laptop.
Wow, a house full of technology and it can be replaced by a single ipad. Makes you wonder why they never did more with all the stuff they've got, it seems like they were seriously under-using it before.
Good thing nobody ever had a complicated spread sheet, a document on letterhead for the office or a small programming job to do!
It's genius how Steve Jobs managed to identify that most people now use their computers as a media consumption device, I see mine as power tools.
>Good thing nobody ever had a complicated spread sheet, a document on letterhead for the office or a small programming job to do!
At home? Most people don't.
Every computer I've watched my parents buy over the past 15 years, they buy Microsoft Office as a reflex response. When I visited for the holidays and helped migrate them to their iMac, I noticed the number of Word and Excel documents they had accumulated over this period.
About 40.
Outside of school assignments, what need does a child have for a productivity suite? Close to zero, and even then, 98% of what they do for writing assignments can be accomplished by a simple typewriter or standalone electronic word processor. Programming? Don't get me started...
My sister bought a 15" MacBook Pro over the holidays, and a copy of Office. She doesn't work on documents, just logs in to Outlook Web Access and maybe reviews something sent to her. She does the real work, well, at work. Aside from occasionally loading new photos into iPhoto after one of her 2 yearly vacations, it's a $1700 web browser and media consumption device.
My non-IT friends? The same. Webmail. Facebook. Funny pictures of cats.
The computer in the traditional sense is becoming a lot more niche. Why? It's what people want.
It's like the new 2011 Mustangs are hitting dealer lots. I want the V8, a 6-speed, the performance axle and the good brakes. Out of the dozens of Ford dealers in a 100 mile radius, only ONE dealer has manual transmissions. The only reason that dealer has them is because it's Bob "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" Tasca -- a car enthusiast, catering to other enthusiasts.
We're computer enthusiasts. The virtues of SSDs are just as foreign as the virtues of powersliding to someone who's, frankly, just not that interested and just wants to get something done inexpensively and with a minimum of fuss that doesn't involve a debugger or heel-toeing.
Even as a computer enthusiast, I've been noticing this trend in my own working styles.
I just assembled a new (fairly top of the line) computer at my house. And for the first few weeks I played on it, installed software, tweaked, etc.
After that I just started using it for email and the web.
Then I got an ipod, and I do all my facebooking, light websurfing, emailing, etc on there. I only power on my computer any more when I want to get some programming done. I don't even use Word all that often -- generally only to open a file that someone has sent me, or is a legacy file from my old computer.
While the general computer will never be replaced (especially at work, or for work-at-homes) I'm seeing a real trend in the desire for single-use, no-fuss hardware applications (the post on Hacker News about TurnKeyLinux is a good example).
For me:
Watching Movies at Home: PS3 and a NAS
Listening to Music at Home: PS3 and a NAS
Music/Video on the Go: iPod
twitter, email, facebook: iPod Touch
light web browsing: iPod
Showing pictures: Net-enabled Photoframe
I see that trend at home too. My dad has a top of the line Dell computer, i7 quad core with 8gigs of memory, 25" 1920x1200 lcd, Nvidia GT200 core, the works. He uses it to browse the web, email (yahoo mail), and uses skype occasionally to chat with distant relatives. He also downloads these korean drama videos every now and then and watches them. He could probably survive on a computer built 10 years ago.
Every time I visit home, there's something broken that I have to fix -- the printer doesn't show up on the network, the computer fan is making a funny noise, the video card is stuck at a low res, the windows file sharing folder disappeared, etc. If you could print via safari on the ipad, I'd probably buy it for them so I don't have to fix windows problems every time I visit home.
Since I got my iPod touch eight or nine months ago, easily 3/4 of my recreational web browsing has moved to the Touch. I frequent a couple of VBulletin-based sites that are just too painful to use that way, and I still use the PC for a lot of things (Photoshop, cataloging & ripping CDs, pulling down media to watch via the TiVo, etc.) but I've moved everything the mobile platform is capable of handling over to the mobile platform.
Just looking at the stuff I'm running right now and wondering how I'd do without:
- xchat (maybe that does work on the iPad, it could be)
- thunderbird
- varicad
- 20 or so terminal tabs logged in to just about as many servers
- about 20 browser windows, each with multiple tabs
- an ide (currently intellij, I hate it but that's what I'm using)
And I'm not even programming right now (haven't touched the ide in a few days, but it's still running), just staying informed, in touch and doing some systems maintenance.
Just thinking about having to 'downsize' to a single non-multi tasking machine without a clearly defined local file store that I can back up to a server gives me headaches.
edit: I missed open office and okular, different desktop, same box.
It would be like looking at the world through a very small key-hole.
It would be like looking at the world through a very small key-hole.
Oh, yes. Heck, yes. I've found that to be a big reason why I love my iPad.
Remember all that psychological research on multitasking? The research that concludes that even the people who claim to enjoy multitasking and have "lots of practice" at it are less productive and more stressed when trying to do more than one thing at a time?
Have you ever seen Cory Doctorow's theory of ebooks? The one that holds that long-form prose on computer screens hasn't worked, not because we're holding out for better screen quality -- many of us white-collar workers spend eight or more hours a day reading from our existing screens, after all -- but because our computers, and our habits when working with them, are so centered around distraction that we can't make ourselves concentrate when sitting in front of a computer? You start to read the novel from the browser window, but then your email beeps. Or, god help you, your mind starts to wander, your hands hit a key-combo, and you check your email as a sort of spinal reflex. And then you notice the RSS feed icon blinking, and then Twitter updates, and then a Skype call comes in, and before you know it you're reading Wikipedia about some band from the eighties while simultaneously watching a YouTube video of some kittens. Or (ahem) posting to Hacker News.
The iPad is relentlessly focused on one app at any given time. This is obviously a problem for some tasks -- yes, you can't really program on the iPad at the moment, or even blog very effectively; that's why iPad owners also have computers -- but for many other uses it is downright refreshing, even Zen. You do one thing. Then you do something else.
Guilty as charged. You have me almost convinced that I should cut down my screen real estate to something a bit more modest and a maximum of one open window at a time.
Maybe I should try that for a week and see how it works and do a write-up.
Since you are cutting down, could I get that extra screen real estate?
When I am programming I have one terminal window open for subversion, the IDE I am programming in, and the web browser for documentation.
When all three are on different screens life is awesome, if I have to move my mouse to switch between windows it becomes a burden and annoying. Having even one extra screen is an absolute must as a programmer. I don't think I could live with just a single screen.
Now on a day to day browsing machine, sure, one screen, like the iPad is perfect. Hell, I tend to sit on the couch with my iPhone browsing the web while watching TV.
This seems kind of silly. You're not forced to multi-task, why not change your habit and use only one application at a time? Try http://www.nowdothis.com - maybe it'll help change your "bad" habit? I'm sure there's an application out there that forces any window on-top and probably blocks out other application sounds.
Right. You're not the normal use case though, even at the office.
At work I probably have SQL Server Management Studio open, a tabbed text editor, Visual Studio, a Terminal Services client, an IM client, Chrome and MSIE both open, Outlook, several internal apps developed for our trading workflow and monitoring, internal design documents, specs and documents from data vendors... etc. My average window count is probably 16 across three displays, and I'm just a developer. Even in most offices that's absolutely abnormal. Heck, in your average office multiple displays is incredibly abnormal. I've worked in other quant shops and I remember in one even the guys driving the company's bottom line were given just a single 19" display.
But that's fine. I don't need most of that at home. At home I get by with a browser, iTunes and occasionally a Terminal Services client.
iPads aren't going to replace desktops for doing real work. They can't. They never will. However the average user -- and the average power user most of the time -- doesn't need a desktop either. I'm pending a home hardware refresh. I'll still get a decked out iMac, but I have a gut feeling it'll mostly be asleep because 95% of what I do at home is with a web browser. And my lounge chair and sofa are much more comfortable.
No one is saying you'd stop using these things. You'll still use them.
You just might not use thrum every second. My sin use for my iPad, in s programming context, is coupling with Papers.app. I basically sit down at a coffee shop in the morning, do my morning email routine, and read an academic paper. If I'm riding the train, it's an easy way to fill wasted time with productivity. I find this much more desirable than using a tiny smartphone. What's more, I try not to waste smartphone battery on reading, I need to husband that for calls.
- xchat (maybe that does work on the iPad, it could be)
X-Chat? Nope. However, I can personally vouch that IRC works on the iPad. And will work even better once we get Colloquy for the iPad released :)
- an ide (currently intellij, I hate it but that's what I'm using)
There's no JRE on the iPad. No bundling your own interpreter either. However, I can see someone making a very good web development IDE for the iPad. Hell, I'd probably pay a lot of $ for one..
There are some basic code editors [1] with built in FTP or similar protocols. Basically they're intended to let you edit scripts and web pages on servers.
A more interesting scenario is when Mozilla's Bespin works properly on the iPad. It doesn't yet, but the developers have mentioned interest in getting it working.
vi comes with (at least Cydia's install of) Terminal.app. The point of an iPad IDE, though, would be to take advantage of the iPad's touch-based workflow; if you're just going to type, you may as well use a PC. I want to finger-paint my programs into existence.
It seems to me the main problem is then the keyboard. As far as I can tell, there's no way I can run Emacs with the iPad soft keyboard (brother in law bought one, so I got to try first hand). But I just have a clunky laptop if I attach an external keyboard.
This is also the problem with the ssh client on my G1. I can do minor tasks in the shell but I can't use my editor.
Exactly. He doesn't seem to realize everything is new and exciting when you first get it. We bought a pool table in my house and used it like crazy for about 6 months, and then barely touched it for 5 years. I can see the iPad being fun and useful for some things, and the price isn't terrible when you compare that some netbooks are going for close to that, but the comment "I'll never buy a real computer ever again!" is a bit ridiculous.
Even his daughter that wants one for college wouldn't want it as her ONLY computer. It would be a pain to write a paper on, or make a spreadsheet for your lab report, or probably even a powerpoint presentation. I had a tablet in college and almost never used it.
> He doesn't seem to realize everything is new and exciting when you first get it.
True, but there's also the possibility of a device either truly replacing previous technology or creating a whole new niche. For example, my iPhone was cool and fun when I first got it and I had been a Treo owner for years, so smartphones aren't new to my life. However, today, my iPhone is quite integrated into my life, way beyond just a cool new gadget.
I know for my family, the iPad fills almost all needs, such that we really only need iPads plus my own laptop which I can share with my wife and kids on the few odd occasions when they actually need to use a computer. I can definitely see that being the trend in other families.
Makes you wonder why they never did more with all the stuff they've got, it seems like they were seriously under-using it before.
The other stuff was, likely, a lot more cumbersome to use. Waiting for machines to warm/boot up, waiting for software to start, etc, adds friction that can have bigger than expected effects on how often devices are used.
The iPad is far from perfect, but an almost instant-on and rapid interface, along with the form factor, makes for a game-changing device that's perfect for checking something on the Web, checking e-mail, or updating Twitter almost anywhere in the house or garden. Phones could do some of this before but the form factor provides a similar friction to usability.
An avid PC gamer, I suddenly, overnight, quit playing PC games after getting the Xbox 360. The gameplay experience was equivalent (the PC was plugged to the same projector), but the "hassle" factor went to zero on the Xbox 360.
Reducing friction makes users into fans. In the article's examples, sounds like people wanting to accomplish simple goals, finding friction reduced when using the new appliance.
I can. I was heavily into the Dune and C&C/Red Alert series and never got on with Warcraft or Starcraft at all. All the fantasy elements, I think.. :-)
Thats the thing, for the average user there is almost nothing they do on a day-to-day basis that requires a complete computer. The future that the iPad is bringing will be back to a family that has one computer (desktop or laptop) stashed in a corner that people use when they need to do something intensive, and an iPad (or similar tablet) for everyone that they use most of the time.
Could is the important word here. Even with all the technology they have now they don’t do much. Getting rid of some technology and replacing some with simpler technology seems like a efficient thing to do.
There will still be dirt cheap fully featured PCs, so if anyone in the family ever feels like they not only could but will want to do more they can to that. That’s hardly depressing.
makes sense. I had to troubleshoot printing problems with my Dad over the phone... apparently the printer got a new IP address and windows couldn't find it. Trying to tell my dad how to fetch the printer ip from the access point and then configure it in windows was a serious pain. After 10 years of technology, configuring the print driver is still hard in windows... it's amazing how well it works on Macs, it's just too bad my parents probably won't want to make the switch.
My iPad is still getting about 3-4 hours use a day - and it still, 30 days later, is pretty popular at parties, restaurants, etc... I'll check back in a couple months. New Apps (PopSci, Time, Penultimate, Sketch, Alice, etc...) keep my interest, mostly. Though Videos, Field Runners, PvZ, Safari, Kindle, WSJ, Mirror's Edge, Marvel, GoodReader, and Email are in pretty much constant rotation.
It's unclear to me if I'll still be as addicted in six months, but the form factor certainly is appealing.
One thing nobody talk about the battery life - It's _not_ 10 hours. It's 10 Hours of _use_. Used on and off, I'll go close to three days before needing to plugin. That's very nice.
About 10 days after getting my iPad, it's hardly been turned on in the past few days. I think the ergonomics of it suck - it's heavy, and it gives me a crick in the neck when I use it.
This is one thing I really don't get about the iPad. I learned a bit of ergonomics in college, and the iPad doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
If you are sitting on your couch with your feet up dicking around on the internet (apparently the iPad primary use case), and you want to look at the screen at the proper viewing angle, either it needs to be tilted up by you holding it at an angle with your wrist (ergonomic no-no) or you need to tilt your head down (ergonomic no-no).
Considering that you probably want to use your hands to tap on it, that means it is likely resting in your lap and your head is tilted down putting strain on your neck.
Color me sensitive (broke my neck rock climbing about a year ago and still get some pains) but that doesn't sound fun over a long period of time.
I really think the amazing thing about the iPad is the screen no the form factor. Give me a macbook pro with a multi-touch screen and dual boot Mac OS X and iPad OS. Tell me you wouldn't prefer that. When you want multitouch, you have it, when you want a keyboard, you have it. When you want to sit back and watch a movie you have a built in stand .
When I want a keyboard, I have it with the external iPad keyboard.
What I don't want is a half-assed multitouch implementation in OSX, and a half-assed mouse+keyboard implementation in iPhone OS, which is most likely what you'd get if Apple did such a thing. It's two different kinds of user interfaces, and they simply don't translate very well between each other.
Then again, Microsoft may pull something magical out of its hat after 10 years of trying with their combo tablet laptops.
A magazine is a lot lighter than the iPad, so that makes a huge difference. Also you don't have to continuously touch the pages of a magazine while using it, which is another significant difference. Finally a magazine is bendy meaning you can change it's size and shape if and when the need arises.
I'm in roughly the same boat. The only person here who likes it is my 3 year old daughter - the rest of us just find it painful to use. Safari is so cumbersome and slow, it's just tedious compared to a real browser. Email seems to get overwhelming quickly (maybe I have too much of it). Any time you have to type things it's exasperating.
Things it is good for: games, watching videos solo (as long as you have somewhere to prop it up - holding it is a pain). The instant-on is handy for extremely brief uses. Showing photos is great (except it ruins the quality of them with stupid downsampling and having to sync them with iTunes is unbearably annoying).
Out of curiosity, do you have the Apple iPad case, or a similar carrying case that allows you to prop it up at an angle?
I found the iPad awkward to use without a case that does this, but after using the Apple case for the few weeks I've had it, I can't imagine using an iPad without it. It props up the iPad in landscape mode at the perfect angle for browsing/reading/typing, whether it's on a table, desk, or your lap. It also can prop it up at a more vertical angle for watching video.
I agree, the iPad by itself is awkward. Get a case for it and see how you like it then.
You know, as much crap as Apple gets, they really have revolutionized the way people use technology. My mom, who a month could do nothing more than open FF on her computer, has been asking me for weeks when the 3G iPad is coming out. I have never seen her so excited to buy any sort of product. And that's why I'm not quick to judge Apple when it comes to their strict policies. They've shown time and time again that they know what they're doing, and they reach out to new, previously non-techy people with every product, inciting within those people a desire to use technology. This all might sound cultish, sure, I love my Apple products, but they hands down have the best computing products on the market for every day people. And I think it's their desire to control and perfect every level of the user experience that has gotten them to that point.
After playing with Safari for a couple of weeks, I've recently started flexing the iPad Photos and Music software and it has been a revelation. My post-80s history with Apple starts with the iPod in 2004, and the iPad Music app is really fucking good. I want to mount this thing in my car, in my kitchen, in my living room. The music software puts the iPhone/iPod touch to shame. Too bad it doesn't fit in my pocket.
And Photos, it's so much fun to play with the "Places" map, I immediately went in to iPhoto and started tagging the rest of my photos. I don't think I will ever use my laptop to browse or show off my photo library again. I can pull up the Places map, hand it off to whoever what to see my photos, and let them go nuts. It's a supremely compelling experience.
I bought an iPad because I wanted to see how a pure touch interface could change traditional human-computer interaction; I haven't been disappointed.
And the iPad App Store isn't even available in my country yet. The iPhone/iPad-only WWDC sold out in 8 days, and I can't wait to see what developers come up with over the next year. It should be a hell of a toboggan ride.
It's a good thing the iPad does have excellent battery life because in our family, it's being used almost all day long. The other night I completely lost my wife and daughter for hours as they played Plants vs Zombies together way past bedtime. My five year old has already requested one for her birthday.
My son, 8, loves to have me watch him play plants vs zombies. (I'm way better, btw. My technique, which seems like the only logical one, is to buy tons of sun producing items in the beginning and fend off the zombies with the free or cheap shooters. At the end of levels I have an excess of 1000 sun points)
2 Onions at the end of the outer (and middle lane). With spikes to the right of them if there are vehicles. Sunflowers behind those. Then you're down to 2 lanes to defend - and heaps of sun. That covers about 90% of the levels.
I've only got it on the iPhone - so I can't play unlimited. I'm not sure how it would go.
It still has a couple of weaknesses - 2 onions will deal with any walking zombie + pole vaulters. It wont stop:
* vehicles -- use a row of spikes
* gargantuar -- cob cannons, etc.
* Miner Zombies -- These are a pain.
* pogo zombies -- I haven't got a great strategy for them.. - cob cannons, cat-tails, etc. (Or just put a pea-shooter (maybe the reverse one) to deal with these and the miners.
* Flying zombies - the blower plant or the cat-tails. The risk is that it can fall behind your onions - and then eat through all of your sunflowers.
Basically - it works awesome for almost every level.. But probably not for unlimited.
I lent mine to a 13-year old kid from a small provincial town in the Philippines and, within an hour, it was like he'd been using one his whole life. And I couldn't steal it away from my 62-year old father while waiting for a flight. And I do remember both of them smiling. This thing is absolutely amazing.
In the very near future the "TV time" of many families like this will be all of them sitting around watching separate movies or shows on individual iPads or similar devices. The shared family dinner has already fallen victim to modern ways. Now the traditional TV-watching paradigm of the past sixty years is going by the wayside.
Annecdotally, I have similar findings. The iPad has replaced 90% of my laptop use at home and the office. The laptop only comes out when I need to do Real Work™, things that require multiple ssh sessions, browser windows, chat, email, etc, all at the same time.
For email, web browsing and those blasted causal games, it's glued to my fingers.
Surprisingly, this seems to be an indication that MS could easily make a good Win7 tablet. They only need to get a good finger-friendly email client, web browser, and IM client.
The argument thta people make is that once you go into some apps then the mouse/keyboard nature is exposed, but it appears that most people never dive into those apps. And in those cases, if the Windows tablet had an easy way to use a keyboard (convertible & detachable) then it would have the best of both worlds.
The only thing Windows doesn't have today is the app ecosystem, and I suspect we'll see that with Windows Phone 7 (and since all the apps are managed, the port will be easy, if not binary compatible).
This reinforces what I've been telling people for the last month or so - the iPad is disruptive to the PC. Maybe it isn't as good as a PC in a lot of situations, but it provides sufficient functionality and speed that people will choose it for its ease of use and portability. And, in a few generations, you will be able to do anything you can on all but the highest-end PCs.
Sure, most people will still use PCs at work, but at home, you will just whip out your tablet.
I played with iphone os 4 today at work, and once multitasking hits the ipad, it's really going to be lights out of how much time is spent on a "traditional" computer.
I'm wondering on only one thing at the moment. How long does it take for people to realize that most of their productivity/business software can be used on iPad as well.
I can imagine people traveling (sales people?) with iPads 3G checking their inventories in real-time, doing their forecast reporting, sending emails, reacting to on-line customer enquires...
Do you think this is something that will happen or my imagination just plays tricks on me? :)
Spot on. Ipads around my home and office seem to mutiply like rabbits. Most people can't articulate why they need one but the little things like competently clearing your email from bed or sitting through 7 hrs of airport travel hell and still have 50% battery are exceptional.
I understand why it's fun to play with a new (limited) device. I have an ipod touch. But I worry when people rush to buy $500 devices without being able to articulate why they need it. It sounds like good marketing and impulse shopping. I'm very curious to see how this plays out in the long run.
I'd love to buy one for my grandma. She has a Dell right now, and she uses it only for e-mail. She seems to constantly be running into problems with Outlook Express (marking items as junk, blocking senders, etc.).
I'd like to find her a device that's friendly and easy to use.
The iPad seems like that device. The only thing it can't do is print photos in e-mail messages (easily). I'm not sure if that's a deal breaker, and I think the usability trade off might be worth it. She could always go back to the Dell for printing.
If anyone's set up a novice with an iPad, I'd love to hear about your (and their) experience. I'm especially curious about whether you set it up as a stand-alone device or if you showed the user how to sync with PC.
"There's an old saying: To a small boy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As programmers, we call into the same trap all too often. We learn about some new technology or solution, and we immediately begin seeing places to apply it."
I got that quote from the post on patterns in Python, but believe it applies equally well here.
It might be a good idea to have a follow up for this article in 6 months to see if the results can be sustained...What iPads Did To My Family After 6 Months.
IT shows perfectly why technology does not brings intelligence.
You can give them the best hardware and still they wont become next Google or Facebook founders or use it in any other productive endevour!
Seriously most of the human race does not deserves the power of computing!
They wont lolcats on "magical devices!"
long live America!
What a waste!
Throughout time, people have used technology to incrementally make their lives better. Not everybody has the skills, goal, or even desire to found the next Facebook or Google. The people who make the most money in the technology space recognize this about their customers and don't look down on them about it.
And, just because you are ragging on intelligence, it is "want"...
You can give them the best hardware and still they wont become next Google or Facebook founders or use it in any other productive endevour! Seriously most of the human race does not deserves the power of computing!
And giving someone utensils doesn't make them a good cook. Yet, people use all sorts of technology in their kitchens now to make their lives better. So it goes with computers. You don't have to end up rich or wildly successful to appreciate quality of life improvements provided by technology.
