History Repeats Itself — Mac & the iPad 514
Keith found an interesting story telling a bit about how Steve Jobs operates. It involves small teams of young engineers willing to work 90-hour weeks in total secrecy, and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language. The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Mac."
First Post? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The iPad definitely has its place...it's just a really pointless place, in my opinion.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I, too, was kind of disappointed with what it turned out to be. Its definitely cooler than any of the e-readers on the market right now, but it enough to make me want to buy one. What I've seen/heard of the features to be expected in the MS Courier device, that looks to be more like what I was hoping the iPad would be like -- something more akin to a digital notebook rather than a giant iPod Touch. Hopefully I won't get disappointed a second time, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language.
Uhm.. they didn't throw away the bad ideas. The phoneless iphone for people with congenital gigantism in their hands got sent to market.
Re: (Score:3)
I anticipate it being kinda like the iPhone in the long run. Gen 1 is pretty...and mostly useless. Gen 2 gets more right. Gen 3 gets MOST things right. Gen 4...finally.
Obviously this is a really annoying model for the consumer...but who ever said Apple cares about the consumer...?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything created by Microsoft also sounds like it's from a line of hygiene products - hasn't stopped them so far..
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Anything created by Microsoft also sounds like it's from a line of hygiene products - hasn't stopped them so far..
I don't know what kind of women you know who would use such a product named "Visual Studio." Eww.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Surreptitiously cover up the 'io' with your thumb and it gets more appealing to some.
90 Hour a week slackers. (Score:5, Funny)
A giant customized Starbucks in Cupertino California where lattes and no soy skim macchiatos are given out free to all employees. The background music involves a playlist of Nora Jones, David Matthews, John Mayer, and Bono on loop from an Ipod docked somewhere in the Apple/Starbucks facility. Hours are long but morale is surprising high as developers, hardware and software, are given 30 minute breaks to masturbate to the new itunes interface.
All developers sit at cafe type tables with a Mac Book Pro while their lord and master Steve Jobs stands deskless in his predictable attire of a turtleneck and jeans. In fact, this is the preferred (mandatory) dress code at Apple. Jobs walks around to each and every department, separated by latte and vegan preferences, and checks on the performance and efficiency of his developers. At any given point in the day one may see Mr Jobs yelling at a programmer for not implementing a button in the perfect shade of corn flower blue (#6495ED) and immediately sends him to the apple punitive chamber, consisting of a HP Compaq running Vista Basic.
There are 2 software development departments and 2 hardware development sections in Apple. For software there is the Apple core team, Apple Open Source team. In hardware there is the Apple systems and management team and the iDevice team. Since the OSX kernel consists of a BSD darwin kernel there is no real need for low level programmers and as such the entirety of the Apple core team consists of UI designers and photoshop junkies. All software churned out from the core team is designed in a program strikingly similar to Visual Studio's form designer but with Cocoa Objective C generated instead. The 16 hour day (Jobs demands 16 hour days since he himself never sleeps) of a core dev involves lining up the right shade of chrome with the latest photoshopped graphite button and maintaining the correct color scheme, not an easy job at all.
The Apple open source team involves a little bit more coding, which is mandated to be done in TextEdit or the option of a $80 third party mac text editor. The Apple open source team doesn't actually create much code but searches the internet for interesting BSD licensed software and modifies it as it's own through obfuscation and conversion to objective C. Many of the items a mac user sees comes from the open source world stamped by apple such as the ability to play music taken from 67 different originally linux based players, CD burning, and the overall ability to click a mouse. Apple's legal department has no qualms about this practice and has assured many that since most of the code is BSD and if any is GPLed many Linux hippies should be grateful that Apple fostered WebKit by using KHTML and adding some Gecko bloat. Perhaps one of the most important items that the open source team has done to date is use parts of the FreeBSD to keep the kernel up to date.
There's not much to say about the Apple systems and management team. I suppose they can be classified in to desktop and laptop systems. Because hardware work is beneath Apple in general and thought of being only worthy of Windows Users and as such can be found working on these beauties in the starbucks bathroom. Desktops are currently made by buying dell machines and putting them in Lian Li cases, where the majority of the costs goes to buying titanium Apple emblems to paste on the sides. Laptops consists of the rebranding of only the most silver and black Sony Viaos but talk has been going around about rebranding Asus EeePCs for a new Apple netbook but you didn't hear that from me, for fear of my life.
The iDevice team's job is to develop for the ipod, iphone, itouch, and many other portable electronics apple may release in the future. Their jobs are very interconnected with the open source team as well as the core dev team. Using firmware from random samsung devices and giving it an OSX skin the ipod stands as a shining example that infringement only applies to greasy file sharers and that the music player remains the best in market
Re: (Score:2)
Re:First Post? (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7Xh0m_Oco [youtube.com]
A lot of it is outdated, but stuff like the filesystem stuff is still true. That always makes me laugh as I had to do it many years ago: "You run to the store to buy the Mac version of Norton Utilities, you run back only for Norton to go 'You idiot! You own a Macintosh! The file is fucking gone!'"
the ipad isn't a computer (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Grossman gets it right in the last paragraph of his Time article [time.com].
Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPad does not need to "mute" anyone, as the Time article puts it. Apple is dictating that it should, because of their desire to do business with book publishers.
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is Apple supposed to make it easy for you to do anything you want with the device?
If you really want to run any program, just "jailbreak" it or sign up as a developer and you can install whatever app you please.
Re: (Score:2)
If the definition of "making it easy" is "not imposing deliberate technical limitations that have no purpose other than restricting the user," then yes, Apple should be "making it easy." I am not saying that Apple needs to post guides or do anything to promote the use of the device in a manner that they do not "approve" of, but it is wrong for them to actively work to prevent people from using the iPad in "unapproved" wa
Re: (Score:2)
Such as?
Re: (Score:2)
What about this: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/02/apple-yanks-5000-iphone-sex-apps.html [blogspot.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Sounds like you want a windows machine.
Or a real Macintosh.
Re: (Score:2)
Such as?
Installing software written in a language other than C/C++/Objective-C?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and just for your information, saying that requiring C/C++/Obj-C is matter of "quality" made me laugh a little.
It is more a matter of user perception than "quality". Say Apple does allow Flash apps to be made for the iPhone/iPad and the App Store now has 10,000 Flash apps. Apple releases an OS update that necessarily breaks a part of the API. The SDK is updated months before this change goes live, and all it takes to fix the problem if you made your app in XCode is to recompile. Adobe, however, sat on their ass during this time and didn't fix their Flash compiler so none of the Flash apps are fixed and ready for
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How is that a "silly" viewpoint? I guess you think that if the manufacturers want to control people, they should be allowed to do so, no questions asked.
"That's nice, but compared to something doing translation from Flash to Objective-C, I'll take the native code, thanks."
What if I had an ActionScript compiler for the i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is restricting the software that you can run with thier software that you purchased.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you really want to run any program, just "jailbreak" it or sign up as a developer and you can install whatever app you please.
I have a dev cert and so far as i can tell you can only run apps as the OS intends them to be run, you can't actually alter anything else on the OS without jailbreaking. Many people don't want to run apps that Apple won't allow, they want to FIX the operating system in ways Apple refuses to do, for instance the pathetic Mail sound no one can actually hear, jailbreakers replace that with something louder quite often.
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:5, Insightful)
People pointing out the problems with hyped products is extremely useful.
The problem is the people pointing out problems seem to refuse to accept that other people are capable of comprehending those problems. A minority of people are complaining about limitations those of us who are interested in the product either doesn't see as a limitation, or limitations that are outweighed by other benefits of the product.
I don't need another device for doing "content creation". I already have one of those I use when I'm at work. When I'm at home or traveling, I want something light I can use to keep in touch with people and entertain myself; I'd rather carry an iPad than a 7 lb laptop. Even at the office, my laptop is tethered to my desk all day, and it's something of a pain to undock it, reset all the open network sessions, and fire up the VPN just to take it into a meeting. With an iPad, I still have a way to check email, read PDFs, and interact with our internal engineering wiki without disturbing my laptop.
My mother doesn't do content creation. She emails her kids, plays light games, and bugs us on Facebook. I'd much rather give her an iPad and force her into Apple's walled garden where she's guaranteed some minimal level of protection from malware than spend another weekend cleaning shit off her Windows laptop because some friend of hers sent her some crappy game with a bunch of spyware inside.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Like what?
Solaris? AIX? Windows? MacOS?
Nope.
I can get free compilers and interpreters for any of those and just start hacking away.
"The iPad is your microwave" "The iPad is your Wii"
Those weak excuses are really sad.
So the iPad is just a souped up Nintendo DS? Yup. That's kind of what the rest of us are saying.
No one should pretend that this device is general purpose or even a general purpose web device.
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like USB ports, the ability to create and run your own software, the ability to chose your own OS, the freedom to download software from anywhere you chose, Flash support, the ability to export and import files at will, etc.?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think its funny when Flash is used as some kind of example of freedom/openness in a platform. AFAICT, Flash is used solely to create hard-to-navigate web sites, annoying banner ads and obfuscating video to make it hard/impossible to download. Where's the freedom in that?
It reminds me of a person complaining that because they can't sign away their rights they're not free.
I'll grant you the lack of USB ports but only as a means of accessing external storage. As a portable device, it'd be nice to see the
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think you missed the memo. We're supposed to hate this device because it's made by Apple.
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:4, Insightful)
A timeclock is often a computer as far as hardware goes. If I went up to your grandma and gave her a timeclock and told her it was a replacement for her computer/laptop, she wouldn't appreciate it very much.
A computer in the common sense is a combination of hardware and software. The iPad's limitations in both hardware and software keep it from being considered a computer.
That being said, I'd buy one at $200, just not $500.
Re: (Score:2)
What if your clock had a more complete display on it (1024x768 LCD), and you wanted to use it to do something the manufacturer did not think it should be used for -- would it be OK for the manufacturer to actively prevent you from doing so?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What if your clock had a more complete display on it (1024x768 LCD), and you wanted to use it to do something the manufacturer did not think it should be used for -- would it be OK for the manufacturer to actively prevent you from doing so?
You mean by epoxying chips to boards, or using parts that suck for any use beyond what the device was intended for, or not doing anything to make using the device for unintended purposes easier, maybe even obfuscating things by not labeling chips, pins or wires, etc?
Yes. What planet are you from?
If it were beneficial to the manufacturer to do so, they will obfuscated, glue, use non-reusable parts all they want, they can and will do this as we speak, and it aint a new concept, bozo. The only reason most gi
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:4, Informative)
There have been a tremendous number of articles explaining that not only is the 3G service available on a pay-as-you-go, no-contract $14.99 option for 250 MB per month, but it also has an unlimited option for $30 per month. You can literally pay for a month -- maybe to take it on vacation where wifi won't necessarily be available -- then not pay for another month of 3G service until your next vacation, if that's what you want.
This is a very good thing, and I hope this type of service becomes available in other devices of this type as they come out.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
just to undercut you with a technicality, the ipad can run javascript and any and all javascript, apple doesnt (yet) force you through their proxy. Javascript is generally considered to be turing complete.
Which brings us back full circle back to the iphone launch, when you want to run any and all code on the i*, the web is your sdk...
i will happily agree though, that the ipad in its current state isnt a computer, not because of any hardware limitation (which also would have been apple imposed), but rather b
I/O and efficiency (Score:2)
the ipad can run javascript and any and all javascript
Can JavaScript on the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad access all the I/O, including audio in and out? Can JavaScript run a video decoder efficiently? Turing completeness isn't enough; the ability to put things on the tape and get things off the tape in a way that suits the user is also needed, as is reasonable time efficiency.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The hardware itself is Turing complete. What you are complaining about is the stock iPhone/iPad OS. But it's like saying a computer is not Turing complete because you don't have tho admini
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which was exactly my point, and which is immoral on the part of Apple.
Immoral, really? It makes it no longer a PC, that's all. Your alarm clock has a microcontroller on it as well, is it immoral for them to tell you how you can use it? Is it immoral that my microwave oven's warranty is voided if I replace the firmware?
Its uses are intentionally limited for the sake of people who aren't geeks. If unrestricted access is a necessity for you, then just don't buy the damn thing! Or, you jailbreak it and accept the consequences of the voided warranty.
There is nothing 'immoral' about building a device without general-purpose software access. Just because you think it is, or want it to be a PC, that doesn't make it wrong for Apple not to make it one.
Re:Who gets to decide what the iPad is? (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume you refer to removing Other OS.
The difference, of course, is that Sony advertised Other OS as a feature, and it was purchased as such. The iPad and iPhone never advertised nor implied that you could run any general user software.
It is wrong to remove an advertised feature, but it isn't wrong (particularly from a moral standpoint) to not add something that wasn't advertised.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with that, but I think that the negative spin, saying that the iPad robs the user of the ability to crate content, is unjustified. The iPad is built to be a device to access content on the move. The iMac and MacBooks are strongly oriented towards content creation. Why bother complaining when a device does exactly what it is intended to do and does it well? (I choose to complain about the price and lack of flexibility that surrounds The Church of Jobs instead.)
Re: (Score:2)
Because it is designed to railroad people into only using it in that manner, as dictated by Apple. Why should Apple decide how I use an iPad? What if I want to use it for something it does not do well -- is that an unreasonable thing for me to want to do, or is it unreasonable of Apple to actively work against me doing so? Maybe you have a different outlook on the world, but when Apple starts actively workin
Re: (Score:2)
What if I want to use it for something it does not do well
Then you bought the wrong device. If you want to create content, don't buy something that has no useful input device.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:the ipad isn't a computer (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Grossman does get it right. That is my disappointment too. The iPad is all about consuming content, being a consumer. It is unlike a PC which can be used to create content. The iPad is a passive device.
Re:the ipad isn't a computer (Score:5, Insightful)
The same could be said of televisions. Does Grossman own a TV?
Or radios. Does Grossman own a radio?
Why are you disappointed with the iPad due to its difficulty with creating content? What were you expecting, exactly? If it doesn't suit your needs, don't buy one. They aren't replacing computers, you know....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
More BS. I've been using my iPhone to make short notes and tasks. Those are both creative. There may be more creative software available on a desktop computer, but that doesn't make the iPad some completely passive consumer device. That depends upon the user. Even if it was true, why is that such a bad thing? Many people have both a TV and a computer.
Paranoid hippie leader and all (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like a cult?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With a cult you get the reality of a UFO, a real boarding pass and the applesauce works for everybody.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I dunno about the burnout part. You're assuming (at least I think you are) that the 90 hour weeks continue on in perpetuity. At my current job, we moved locations. Built everything and I do mean everything from the ground up. (I'm a network/security/voip guy by trade) Our data center had nothing in it. ACs, UPS, all the racks, the frigging floor needed paint, everything was done by 3 of us. Towards the end of the move, we worked in excess of 200 hours over the final 2 week period, and for several mon
Re: (Score:2)
"like" seems somewhat redundant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Paranoid hippie leader and all (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends... If what you are working really interests you 90 hours is really easy. Most of our jobs are not so exciting that we can handle it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So people who strive to achieve more than basic human needs, who desire to climb Maslow's hierarchy of needs, are now cult members? Funny, that.
Ambiguous patterns are easy to apply. (Score:2)
Small teams of young engineers willing to work 90 hour weeks in total secrecy, and a complete willingness to throw away bad ideas without flowery language.
How small? How young?
I'm sure a nice chunk of R+D projects fall under a pattern defined by:
"Some engineers willing to work a lot, secretly, with a boss."
It could also be said (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Xerox Parc took the US consumer back to a safe child like state of pressing one big mouse button.
Xerox Parc will take the adult US consumer to a safe child like state of tapping one big screen.
Understand what Xerox Parc spent its cash on and you will know why Steve can always get your inner child to spend cash too.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be more likely to guess that normal computers simply got boring, and he turned his attention to portable devices. Why would a really creative mind stick to polishing the same product over and over again?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So he sees what people want - better than just about anyone, and he's not a visionary?
flame suit on... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always been of the opinion that this is one the 'advantages' of the dominance of Windows. If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market - The dominance of windows makes "the job easier."
Drivers and system requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a small development house cranking out applications, you only need to make a Windows version and you've got a big chunk of the market
Until you run into hardware issues. Hardware issues for Windows and Linux applications fall into at least two categories:
Article premise is completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's conveniently leave out any mention of OS 9, NeXT Step, and the fact that for a while it looked like Apple was going the way of the Dodo.
Re:Article premise is completely wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Article premise is completely wrong (Score:4, Informative)
...except that Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project long before it was finished, which resulted in his takeover of the Macintosh as his personal fief. So no, Lisa isn't a good example at all.
I can't say anything about the Apple TV, but there's plenty of history about the Lisa and Macintosh available online. You should consider reading some of it; it's an interesting story.
Re:Article premise is completely wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
In many of these cases -- the Newton for example -- Apple was simply too far ahead of its time. It took decades for customers to understand why these products were needed and to be sophisticated enough to want them.
There are other companies whose stock has been in doldrums for years, who haven't yet figured out that their business model can't continue forever and rely on upgrades instead of innovation for the majority of their income. Those other companies will be in for a rude surprise by the time the dust settles because they DON'T realize they're in trouble -- they believe they're succeeding so they can't fix the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Better still, let's stop pretending Jobs actually invents the things Apple makes.
You might want to reconsider your claim [uspto.gov]. Jobs is listed on a number of Apple's patents. He may not engineer the inner workings, but he is involved in many projects from start to finish.
Re:Article premise is completely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sort of Like Jesus and the Apostles (Score:2)
Those guys started a religion.
Hey, come to think of it, so did Jobs...
The Mac? (Score:4, Funny)
No, no, no...
You went one generation too far.
The iPad is surprisingly similar to the Lisa.
Closed Developer ecosystem, !"Closed system" (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that Company X makes a closed system is nothing new, nor is it noteworthy. Closed systems are a dime a dozen.
What the blogs are on fire about, and what we ALL should be worried about, is a closed developer ecosystem. It's Apple's new focus, and if it's allowed to propagate to the open platform we're all screwed.
Re: (Score:2)
Closed systems are a dime a dozen.
While I dislike Apple as a company, let's be fair. Not only are their products quite good (from both a technical and aesthetic standpoint), but they're able to continually change their game. Of the big companies out there, they're the only ones doing truly "different" things during the depression.
Oh, as for "dime a dozen"... seriously? There are how many open systems out there? Debian, Fedora, RedHat, CentOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris - and all their derivatives. Maybe if you were talking hardw
Re:Closed Developer ecosystem, !"Closed system" (Score:5, Insightful)
The end does not justify the means. Anything that restricts developer and user freedom in a mass-market channel should be argued against.
And anything NOT open source can be considered a "closed system". Windows is a closed system. What Apple did was to extend the closure to the developer channel, such that it provides a single, monolithic, commercial gateway to the system, which has been very rare in the industry. Not even Microsoft at their most abusive would have attempted that kind of developer lockout.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not hyperbole when "all" refers to us OS X developers, which was the intention.
Nor is it hyperbole if a closed developer channel proves too lucrative, and too compelling-- and other platforms smell blood in the water. Like Microsoft, for example, who already is implementing a single gateway for Windows Mobile 7 development.
I would love for it to *be* hyperbole. I certainly hope it turns out to be so, and that the larger open platform (where developers can choose their own audience) isn't rendered obs
Things the iPad needs (Score:4, Interesting)
For content creation:
- an ePub authoring program (given Pages.app v1's execrable html export I'd like to see someone other than Apple create this)
- AppleScript Studio --- let's take HyperCard to the next level and let's use computers as more than glorified memory typewriters
- both of the above could be merged into a tool to create iTunes LP format files for eBooks w/ interactivity
- ArtRage / Autodesk Sketchbook / Corel Painter (and a stylus)
- FutureWave SmartSketch (the program now known as Flash was originally a vector drawing program written for Go Corporation's PenPoint) or some other vector drawing program suited for use w/ just a stylus
- Infty Reader or some other sort of handwriting recognition software which encompasses not just multiple languages but also mathematical equations (naturally this too needs a stylus)
- a free-form database / spreadsheet which can be queried in a graphical fashion and have formulas calculated from it, where they formulas are natural expressions --- something like Lotus Improv plus sBook5
But above all, the option of a stylus --- we're no longer Pythagoras reduced to drawing figures in the sand w/ our fingers --- people are the tool using animal, let's provide the most natural possible tool for drawing, writing and calculating.
William
Re: (Score:2)
Accidentally intentional (Score:2)
Anyone who thinks the lost 4G iPhone was an accident is fooling themselves. Talk about a free marketing windfall.
Why 1st gen. Apple products lack "features" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow...
that is just.... mindboggling
could we just all agree ... (Score:2)
Google "cloning"? (Score:2)
From the article:
Word on the street is that Google has already powered up its copiers, and will be chunking out an iPad clone.
This characterization of google as "chunking out" clones is unfair. Google is going to enter the pad computer market with its own line of products; if anyone that enters a device market is cloning, the 99% of the tech business is engaged in "cloning."
Throw away bad ideas? (Score:2)
They were willing to throw away bad ideas, but kept the name iPad? What names did they throw away that were worse? iColonoscopyBag?
Done before Apple by Data General (Score:2)
Read Soul of a New Machine about a team at Data General developing a computer to compete with the brand new VAX computer. Similar stategy of getting group of young engineers to work long hours on a project. Personally I think Job's genius is producing a product when the technology is ready that really appeals to people. He also has the dictatorial power to push back the release date if he feels that some aspect of the product is unacceptable to him and must be changed.
Finally one quirk of his design for
iPad has it's niche (Score:4, Interesting)
You can knock it all you want, but there's a niche for the iPad. It's ideal for people like my wife. She likes knitting in her recliner while watching TV. Every once in a while, she will need to look up a certain stitch that she's not familiar with. So she has to put up knitting out of reach of the dogs (they like yarn too), leave the room and look it up on the computer. That means if I'm using the computer, I need to get up so she can poke around for a few minutes trying to find a good illustration or video demonstrating the stitch. In most instances not a big deal since I can usually stop what I'm working on, be it coding, editing video or paying bills & balancing the checkbook. Every once in a while it will be when I'm playing WoW and I'll be in a group, so it can be a pain in the neck because it inconveniences more than just me.
In our situation, the iPad would be perfect for her. If she needs to look up a stitch, she could just set her yarn & needles in her lap and look the stitch up on the iPad. If there's something on the news and she wants to look it up, check the weather, check her mail, check her Facebook, etc., she doesn't need to go through the whole rigamarole of stowing her knitting and then switching user accounts on the computer, etc. It's not that she can't do these things on the computer in the other room, but it would be so much more convenient for her to be able to check it from where she's sitting.
Does not really "require" a computer to use (Score:3, Interesting)
But it is not a simple device: it requires a desktop or laptop for maintenance and synchronization
Actually not really. If you wanted, you could use the device without connecting to a computer (except for the initial connection to iTunes which is required).
After all, you can buy books and apps and music on the device. Although you'd probably want to connect it to a computer some times to back up data, even that is not absolutely necessary, especially for someone without a lot of generated data.
For instance
Idiot and Zealot tags, really? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, you guys do know who Bruce Tognazzini is, right? Oh I forgot, your average Slashdot poster living in his mother's basement had more insight into this than the guy responsible for the original Macintosh user interface guidelines.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please, Apple has come out with some Spiffy stuff.
The I-Pad is a Vanilla offering undeserving of the apple moniker..
And no, I'm no Mac Fan.
If you are no mac fan, why do you use the phrase "undeserving of the apple moniker"?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he likes their socks [apple.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I use my iPad at home, you probably won't see me walking around with it.
Re:the ipad is not a success (Score:5, Funny)
I use my iPad at home, you probably won't see me walking around with it.
I'd be ashamed too.
You could paint it orange and pretend it's a brick.
Or glue some hair to it, a rope, and pretend you're walking a chihuahua.
Re: (Score:2)
lol. I really wish I had some mod points left.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't get it.
They work 90 hours and then they work a totally secret amount of extra hours.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Either this is wrong, or it's wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
WARNING!
You have submitted a post containing elements of reading comprehension and nuanced logic. This will not be tolerated here. All posts must be one of:
- Humor (soviet russia, hot grits, indeterminate overlords, etc.)
- Troll (microsoft baiting, apple baiting, linux baitinc, etc.)
- Flame (microsoft flaming, apple flaming, linux flaming, etc.)
- Autistic Spectrum Disorder Verbal Manifestation (excessively literal minded application of first order predicate logic with as few points of reference as possible to the original article or the real world)
You have been warned!
In future, any posts not meeting these guidelines will be auto-moderated to:
(Score: 0, Thinking Human Being)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The iPad costs ~$265 to produce, just the manufacturing not including R&D costs. It sells for $499. Not even close to your 5-10x hyperbolic statement.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's historically accurate if that's your question.
The author Bruce Tognazzini [slashdot.org] more commonly known as TOG, literally wrote the book on user interface design. He's arguably the greatest living expert on human-computer interaction and design.
He knows how Steve Jobs manages because he worked very closely with Jobs before, during, and after the development of the original Macintosh.
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu says: " When a general [is] unable to estimate the enemy’s strength ... the result must be rout."
T