What’s so revolutionary about the iPad? Nothing, except…
The Apple touch of simplicity.
Anyone can make a hardware device like this, a lot of manufacturers are trying, but the Apple ease-of-use gives it the ability to be a family device, like the iPhone is already in so many homes. I could imagine having an iPad for everyone in the house to use: my wife could use it as her primary machine, Avery could use it to play on the internet and watch movies and I could use it for reading books and my nightly business email and calendaring on the couch. I strongly believe the iPad will strive as a home/family device not a personal device.
Many had their theories about how the iPad device would fit into the personal computer scheme of things, it’s apparent the iPad is nothing extraordinary. And with that lack of extraordinary we can forget about “why would someone want the iPad, a laptop and a computer” because it’s going to be used differently than any other device ( clearly ). A device that’s lying around the house, that immediately connects you to the most important areas of computing: Email, Media, Reading and the Internet; is the missing piece of computing that everyone needs ( which Apple is striving for ).
It will take a for the iPad to be considered a device like the home TV or the PS3/XBOX/Wii. Maybe a price drop to $299 will propel it there.
Update: I’m not forgetting the businesses upsides, like healthcare and education, but the success in those areas are dependent on application developers. The iPad out of the box is a device that fits into the daily life of a modern family.
Aside: see my iPad thoughts/review here.
If you follow me on twitter you already know that I’m not blown away by the new Apple iPad. I do believe the device will eventually revolutionize home computing ( I’ll get to that later ) but I’m not sold on the bigger iPhone at $499 right now.
In 60 – 90 days when more developers get their hands on the SDK and start creating apps specifically for it and when publishers start making interactive versions of their content sales of the device will undoubtedly take off. Many will be sold on the device when they see a subsidized version at $299, I will but…
$299 is highly unlikely, I’m willing to bet the subsidized price will be $499. Apple is already preparing us for a high priced subsidized version by having the 3G version almost $200 more. Maybe we’ll see the 3G version subsidized at $399 or $450 and my hope for a sub $300 device will for not.
Here are some more tidbits of speculation, since nothing is certain right now:
I’ll be following up this post with “Where the iPad will Revolutionize“.
[Read the full post here, otherwise this is the main argument]
I’ve been called a fanboy too many times…an Apple fanboy. Let me get things straight for all of you anti-apple cool kids, “I’m
not an Apple Fanboy!”.
Possibly the best definition of fanboy is from wikionary:
Someone (normally male) who is utterly devoted to a single subject or hobby, often to the point where it is considered an obsession
By that definition I could call anti-apple trolls “anti-apple fanboys” since it’s their obsession to point out their distrust no matter what the original subject was about.
Anyways…
I do tend to show appreciation for my Apple products, only because they have a positive impact more than any other. And since I’m a “techie”/gadget hobbyist and I make a living from the technology and the internet I’ve spent a lot of time preferring one product over another.
One would take the opportunity to theorize a master planned conspiracy for world domination with that last point; instead I’ll refrain from concluding anything ( except [1] ); but if those unlikely theories do come to pass my continues review of alternatives will lead me to the best user experience and productivity in my digital life/work–regardless of the company.
[1] …except to point out that all media rights owners ( music and video ) and iphone application vendors have a choice to deal with Apple distribution channel and their restrictions.
Found out the URL today to use gmail tasks for the iPhone when you have a Google apps account.
https://mail.google.com/tasks/a/yourdomain.com/iphone:
Sort of crazy that they don’t have this documented anywhere.
There’s also an android version:
https://mail.google.com/tasks/a/yourdomain.com/android
I searched the apps store tonight for Aurora Feint after some great reviews from Macbreak Weekly. After a few searches and scanning I couldn’t find it at all, apparently it was kicked off the iPhone app store – for security issues.
Luckily I was able to find a link from a “customers also bought” list.
I wont be able to give any reviews but I’m for sure not going to use any of the community features, since it scans your address book and sends it to their servers unencrypted to find your friends playing at the same time. A fantastic idea but poorly implemented. At least the developers knew it was wrong in the first place but they felt rushed to get it out for the launch.
aside: I do think apple did the right thing, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think different. But Apple is supposed to be looking at all these apps first andI’m sure they wont let something like this fly by them again – especially since it sounds like they’re taking more time to review.
This is why I think an app store is a good idea, Apple doesn’t care to “control you”, they want to make sure you don’t experience something insecure or faulty. Then again, neither of which is happening to perfection just yet, whether its due to the rushed approvals for launch or not.
Update: That was fast. They’re back in the store with “apple’s endorsement”. Check out Jason’s comment below.
I hope this unexpected alert is a sign to come.
So, the alert is trying to tell me there are application updates on the computer it syncs (which is on the same network). This is definitly a cool feature but the functionality could be put to better use, like iTunes syncing over WiFi.
Having VNC for the iPhone is awesome. With the screen resolution and 3G I can actually get something done on my home computer – anywhere. Here are some screens I took, not an extensive review but you all know how VNC works, it’s a remote desktop.
Here’s a screen grab of all the apps I’ve downloaded already. I can’t give any full reviews just yet; no time and I haven’t played with them all just yet. First impressions though:
AIM: Why did I download that, I don’t use aim. Looking forward to a GTalk (native) app, the special iPhone web version will do for now.
Facebook: Pretty awesome. It’s going to be a great contacts backup.
Google Mobile App: I don’t really get it. It’s a start page for all of their iPhone web apps but has some great search functionality on the start page.
Loopt: Very interesting. It’s going to be a cool Twitter app, because of it’s location based social features.
Twitteriffic: Excellent twitter app: location, photos and all tweets. I hope Hahlo comes out with a premium app, I’d really like to see summize integration.
Pandora: didn’t work so well on edge the first time. Let’s see how it works tomorrow on 3G. I’m really stocked about this one.
Remote: Oh man, can’t wait to get this hooked up to the AppleTV.
Super Monkey Ball: graphics are excellent for a phone but I’m not very good at it…yet.
and the best app so far…
Enigmo: This game is fun. It’s going to be a blast to play this in line somewhere or just waiting around.
What I’m really looking forward to is the Wordpress App, now Jared and I wont be asked to update Mobile Admin anymore.
“There are definitely some very interesting methods added to UIApplication’s delegate, including methods for badging the Springboard icon, and methods related to gaining and resigning “active” status – seems like background apps may be permitted somehow.” #
Interesting, I wonder how they’ll handle it (if they do allow some type of background apps, even with cron or something) because I still think they need to be careful. I’d love background apps, for a Google Reader app or a GTalk client but I don’t want my phone overbudened enough to affect the overall speed and stability of the phone.
If you’re looking to jailbreak or hack your iPhone you really need to check out ZiPhone. Forget about JailBreakMe.com, it doesn’t work on the newer firmware releases but the community and Zibri are working hard on keeping this app easy for all and up-to-date.
It’s as simple as running the program, clicking on one of two options and waiting for your phone to finish updating.
I haven’t unlocked or upgraded my baseband yet but when the 3G phone comes out I’m planning to unlock this one and sell it on eBay or craigslist. I’ll probably post about it when the time comes around.
