How the iPad Is Already Reshaping the Internet (Sans Flash) 532
The Internet's already starting to look different, says Gizmodo, in a piece of interest not only to everyone with an iPad floating around the UPS system, but also those of us thinking about some other kind of tablet in the medium-term future. As they put it, "The iPad doesn't run Flash. If your website uses Flash, it won't play well on the iPad. Turns out, a lot of people want their sites to look pretty on the iPad."
And an anonymous reader adds this snippet from Webmonkey: "In anticipation of Saturday's release of the iPad — which doesn't run Flash — Apple has published a list of 'iPad Ready' websites. The sites are all big league sluggers like CNN, The New York Times, People Magazine and MLB.com. Surprisingly, there are also a few video-heavy sites in the mix (Vimeo, Flickr, and TED) which would traditionally rely on Flash Player for video playback."
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:5, Interesting)
s/Apple/Adobe/;
Re:Here we go again (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah. I remember being asked to make a web site in Flash (since it couldn't possibly be done w/ HTML/CSS/Javascript). They gave me the requirements and I whipped up a site in no time using HTML/CSS/Javascript that fit those requirements. Oh, I loved the look on their faces when they found out it wasn't flash...
That said, I've actually played the iPhone card before, to get out of using Flash unnecessarily. A contractor wanted to use Flash, so I just informed the director the site wouldn't work on her iPhone. Problem solved!
Re:Newgrounds (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's DHTML Lemmings written six years ago:
http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/ [elizium.nu]
Here's an HTML5 particle system:
http://www.mrspeaker.net/dev/parcycle/ [mrspeaker.net]
Here's Quake II running in your browser:
http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/ [google.com]
I am holding my breath... (Score:3, Interesting)
...for the competitors.
iPad is an awesome idea poorly executed. The OS is poor. The hardware limitations are severe. The price is silly. The lockdown is a showstopper. But the idea of a small wireless touchscreen as a form factor for a computer is awesome.
First netbooks, with 8" screens, 2GB of flash and 512MB RAM were useless too. But I don't imagine myself without my eee900 now - it reached a very usable and perfectly adequate parameters for an attractive price, while retaining the basic form factor.
It will be the same with "pads", computers that look just like iPad, but can be used for photoshop (wireless, affordable Cintiq anyone?), can run any software you like (factory floor control or storage hall management anyone?), can be had for the same price as a netbook, can use 3G, can be used in bright daylight without backlight, have built-in SD reader, a camera and so on.
And just like the web only -somwehat- adapted to netbooks (they are what keeps 32bit software alive), but few sites care about the earliest of them, iPad influence on the net won't be very deep either.
Re:Nope, doesn't get it. (Score:1, Interesting)
I love my mobile for quick emailing and texting and looking something up on the Internet when I'm arguing with friends over esoteric trivia at the pub. Now replace "mobile" and "at the pub" with "iPad" and "on my back patio" respectively and you see where the use case is for the iPad. Because it's too damn big to carry down at the pub and you'd be pretty well fscked if you had to do hours of serious work on that tiny ass screen using a shitty touch-screen "keyboard".
So it's essentially a mobile phone without the phone part and you can't just chuck in your pocket and take with you everywhere you go. Which limits its mobility to "around the house" and "anywhere you could just as well carry a laptop".
And even though I think Steve Jobs is a genius and a visionary, he's also a blowhard and I'm not sucking the Apple teat on this one.
iPad? iPass.
Re:My money's on the internet (Score:3, Interesting)
Hope it has some kind of stand otherwise it's going to be a real pain in the ass to get a good viewing angle without also getting it too near to messy ingredients while cooking.. a typical netbook or even a laptop would be good for these things (and in fact I have used a laptop or netbook for all of them in the last month), and has the added benefit of a decent keyboard.
I still think the iPad looks pretty cool and wouldn't mind trying one, but don't try to pretend like it has anything going for it other than a nice multitouch interface and the possibility of living out geeky Star Trek style datapad fantasies :P
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:3, Interesting)
I use Macs for everything these days, have several iPods (contrary to what everyone claims, I can't seem to get them to die, so I end up accumulating them), and I'm constantly attached to my iPhone.
But I have to agree. For $500, I could get a perfectly serviceable netbook. I would be interested in the iPad if it were $199. Otherwise, I have a MacBook Air as my work machine, and I have the iPhone. The former does everything; the latter does everything I want when out and about. I just don't understand where the iPad is even supposed to go. I don't get it.
Re:Apple finally does something useful? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can hear the difference on headphones between the original wav/flac and your average lossy encoding (yes, A/B/X). Of course, I've got a pro soundcard, a set of sennheiser HD 650s and a dedicated amp.
Note, I can't ABX -GOOD- lossy recordings anymore. Just the average ones.
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They are not... (Score:2, Interesting)
That I utterly disagree with. Not even close. It's misleading, almost laughable.
Re:There's an app for that! (Score:3, Interesting)
but it seems totally inane that they coded an iPhone-specific app rather than just, say, making a mobile site that every device would be able to use
No, it makes sense. You can trivially package Flash apps as iPhone apps and put them in the iPhone store. If you already have a Flash-based site, popping it in an iPhone app can be done in a couple of hours. It's misleading when people claim 'Flash doesn't run on the iPhone' - it does, it just doesn't have a browser plugin.
Re:I am holding my breath... (Score:3, Interesting)
that's nice
for us people that have procreated and have ankle biters there are cool apps like a Dora coloring book, board games and others you can run spending time with your kids. $500 upfront investment and a low per app price is pretty good compared to $30 for a physical board game where half the pieces will be lost and that will make a mess.
and i bet once all the old classic geek board games start to hit the iPad, geeks won't care about it being locked down
Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
Advertising to THOSE people would be preaching to the choir for certain advertisers and meaningless to most others.
So they are actually a waste of advertising money.
Sure, you will be able to sell them every single shiny thingamajig by Apple or a lot of Starbucks lattes - but also only about zero items that are not "hip".
Re:Statistically speaking, (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree entirely with what you say except for the word 'literally'. If literally nobody did serious content creation, there would be NO serious content creation. Literally no-one is able to hold their breath for a month. Almost no-one can hold it for longer than a few minutes. Almost no-one does serious content creation.
If the iPad succeeds, it will take tablet computing to the masses, just like the iPod did for MP3 players. Of course there are players that can handle flac and all that other stuff that the relative minority care about but who outside of the geeks had heard of an MP3 player before the iPod came along? Same thing with the iPhone and smartphones.
It's the cry of the power user again. The iPad doesn't do what you want? Well, one of the many, many competitors that will be out soon might. Let the iPad be.
I say, lets wish the iPad well, for all it's limitations it'll make the tablet PC industry better because everyone will have to try harder.
Posting AC because I can't be bothered to log-in.
Re:Newgrounds (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention Adobe ported Quake 2 to Flash back in 2007 using the Flash C compiler and it was about as fast - considering it was the most hacked together port on earth I thought its performance was ok.
Also - Quake 2 might have run on a really fast 486 (like a 133 mhz one), but yeah it was designed for a low end Pentium with hardware acceleration.
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot the carry case (because unlike a laptop, you can't close it to protect it), + taxes. A grand.
I can get a laptop with much higher specs for less. What am I saying - I *have* a laptop with much higher specs. Better screen resolution. 10x the storage space of the top-of-the-line iPad (640 gig). 4 gigs of ram, multi-core, supports flash, usb, ethernet, has a built-in camera ... and at 17", the screen is big enough for several people to watch it at once.
It can even make phone calls!
The iPad should really be called the iPDA - it's a PDA, not a tablet computer.
You knw what's funny? (Score:3, Interesting)
almost every complaint about the iPad is exactly the same complaint people had about the iPod.
For me, there are two deal killers:
1: No built in video camera
2: http://wepad.mobi/en [wepad.mobi]
Re:The arrogance !!! (Score:3, Interesting)
You might have a point if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of sites are doing just that.
No, that is not my claim. (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me rephrase, since I was clearly unclear before.
Geeks posit that user interfaces are useful, but at the same time they routinely assume that user interfaces are essentially (in the philosophical sense) aesthetic quantities.
When the public finds a user interface to be useful, Geeks therefore assume that users' preferences are aesthetic ones. "The public has been fooled by teh sexxy!" In fact, the public is often responding to the user interfaces usefulness with respect to their desired ends and the knowledge and ability that they possess.
So what geeks take to be an aesthetic judgment about a useful tool (the user interface), is for the public a matter of utility maximization with respect to that useful tool.
This stems from the fact that geeks equally grok all user interfaces, so it's true that the primary mode of differentiation between them is often aesthetic. The public, on the other hand, does not equally grok all user interfaces, so the primary mode of differentiation between them for the public is inherently a matter of utility: can I use it or not?
Apple excels in making user interfaces that non-geeks are able to use. Geeks mistake the preferences of non-geeks to be aesthetic decisions because they see the user interface as inherently aesthetic in nature with respect to computing tasks.
Sure. I think it kinda sucks, (Score:3, Interesting)
with the potential someday either to totally suck (if Apple becomes the dominant player in a DRM universe of internet users and producers) or to suck much less (if Apple takes a more iTunes-like path and opens things up eventually).
One of the most interesting possible effects of iPhone/iPad to my eye is its discursive effects on computing. Users develop their understandings of the computationally possible based on what they understand of the user interface ("what it lets me do"). That which it doesn't offer they often don't imagine.
So there is a way in which Apple is indeed shaping the future of computing by shaping users' understandings of what computing is for and can and can't do, and this of course affects the structure of the internet and its content since the primary purpose of computing amongst the planet's population right now is as a mediator for the network.
Right now like so many other things iPhonePadPod is indeed a closed garden, and that sucks. At the same time, it enables a whole universe of tasks achievable with computing that hadn't really existed before (most of the ways in which I use my iPhone that tie social media/participation to location tracking to the characteristics of urban space). People can say "this existed before" or "this would have happened without Apple," but it didn't, not in ways that people actually wanted to use. It happened through the iPhone and at the moment nobody else is doing it nearly as well. Some of this success may inhere in closedness and its relationship to order, predictability, and the ability to realize a strong, focused vision that actually represents a field of practice that people want to engage in (a task where Microsoft fails but apple routinely succeeds).
So, on balance, mixed bag. Closedness sucks. On the other hand, this may be an instance in which closedness made possible an interesting kind of progress. Even if you don't buy that, it's an instance in which closedness right now embodies a certain kind of progress that many (myself included) like and are willing to pay for. Others are trying to shift this progress onto more open "tracks" (i.e. Android) but are meeting with limited success, largely because the devices and ecosystems are proving not equivalent for the task (largely as a matter of the user interface issues that are so controversial here, including in this story).
In the meantime, we have handset hacking and we can DeDRM every known eBook and music format, so I don't feel as though I'm living in a totalitarian information state yet.
So that's my comment on the subject. ;-)
P.S. You're no doubt right, too, that many Slashdotters are being unfairly characterized by my use of "Slashdotters" in my posts. So, those of you that aren't busy engaging in irrational Apple-hatred and regular-user-hatred, my apologies to you.
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm getting one mainly for one app: VNC.
I've got one headless mac running my music studio. I've been running it by logging on to it with my laptop, but a laptop is a pain in the neck when you're rehearsing, recording, etc., especially if you're standing up most of the time. It also means I don't need to print up lyric sheets if I'm learning a new song, since I can just read them off the iPad screen as easily as a book.
The studio computer is rack-mounted in a road case with my PA amp. Using an iPad, I can run sound for a full band from anywhere in the club with no need for a cable snake. Just garageband, WiFi, a shared desktop, and any laptop or smartphone running VNC. I've been doing it this way for a while and it's AWESOME, and will be even better using an iPad for the controller.
I also have a mac driving my media center. I don't care to turn on my projection screen just to launch iTunes so I can listen to music, so I remote to it. Doing so with a laptop sucks.
For the rare times when I do want to accomplish something that I would normally do on a laptop. (Photoshop? Web design? Video editing), I can just plug it into the keyboard dock, and remotely run one of my other computers, where the "heavy" apps will actually live from now on.
So there's no need for a "desktop replacement" laptop for me anymore. Just an iPad as a thin client to my "real" computers. I honestly can hardly wait.
Re:There's an app for that! (Score:3, Interesting)
But don't you need an app for iPhone, another app for Android (seperate apps for 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1), and now an app optimized for iPad?
Re:Not everyone is an Apple whore (Score:3, Interesting)
So I now have a Droid. But whenever I'm in range of a Wifi hotspot, I'm using my iPod Touch.
About the only App I'm going to buy for the Droid is PDAnet, which I own for my Treo (and love).
Re:There's an app for that! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My money's on the internet (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but your back from home. You are exhausted. Now you must go upstairs to get your laptop and your adapter, bring it downstairs (I'm being maybe a bit extremisch to explain this), maybe hook it up to the AC (iPad's standby mode is one month) and then boot it up and then...
Well... Or you can just grab the iPad instead that has no fanholes that shouldn't be covered by your legs (!) and go with the flow.
You see, do you grab your laptop each time you want to read the newspaper, or a book, or listening to your music, or when you'r watching tv and you need to look up quickly what's on at channel 4, etc?
It is way more instantly usable. It is not a laptop. It is not a desktop. It is a new device that tries to convert everything that you aren't doing digitally yet to something digital. Hence the books. Mayeb you want to play chess when someone's over, or just grab the iPad and launch your chess app and do it against the other player (or whatever, maybe a bit extreme too),
It becomes a household object and not someonbe's laptop you aren't suppose to be using before asking.
That's the point.
No I will not be getting it. No I hate the iPod. No I don't use anything that they ever made.
But you need to get the point. I am not a marketing person (maybe the wet dream of one right now); I am just trying to explain something to you.
Oh and I will buy such a product, onces it has a decent touch-sensitive touchscreen for drawing with Inkscape...
Yes fsck Apple, but such new genre of computers I do realy like and I do realy want and I do see the point of their excistense...