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Bertelman

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http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

All this time I wanted an iPhone, now this comes out. Words cannot describe. I want it.
 
As I sit here and type on my Macbook, with my Iphone about a yard away, I can't get over the fact that for someone who owns these two devices, why would I spring for this?

Toy? Sure.

Anything else? Big ol' No.

I'm a HUGE MAC fan, but I'm not loving this. The website explaining 8 things that suck about the Ipad makes me think that this is even less attractive than I already thought.

Hmmm...

D712
 
As I sit here and type on my Macbook, with my Iphone about a yard away, I can't get over the fact that for someone who owns these two devices, why would I spring for this?

Toy? Sure.

Anything else? Big ol' No.

I'm a HUGE MAC fan, but I'm not loving this. The website explaining 8 things that suck about the Ipad makes me think that this is even less attractive than I already thought.

Hmmm...

D712

Yeah, this thing is super lame. What's the point? An iPhone or iPod touch you can stick in your pocket, so I'm willing to make some significant trade-offs. But why sacrifice so much for a form factor that's the same as a netbook? Just buy the netbook for $200 less, then you can listen to music while surfing and posting on SDN.

Jobs f'ed this one in my book.
 
As an avid apple fan, I was totally ready to hand over Steve Jobs my money... until I heard details of this ipad. What it DOES is nothing all that different than what an iphone does. As many on the web have already said "its just a bigger itouch". Sure, its cheaper than I thought it would be but purchasing this would result in even more dependence on other developers to put out good software. I want the ability to take notes on my ebooks (i.e. anesthesia texts), I want this thing to be able to run flash (no hulu or other sites)... plus, AT&T??? are you kidding me. AT&T can hardly handle the load on their towers with the iphones. Why would I want to go into AT&T dead zones with an oversized itouch?

Underwhelmed would be an understatement ... before the announcement, I would have paid without even looking at it. Now, it'll take me quite some time handling it before I dish out the cash.
 
Like all tech products, they'll work out the limitations. I'm clearly not going to shell money for one now. But as someone who is looking to replace his laptop in the next few years, it's not too bad.

Look at the current generation of iPods. games, takes video, etc. Now compare that to the first gen iPod, or even the 5th gen. The point is not what this device is capable of today. It's what the device is capable of once developers get their hands on it.
 
Big itouch sums it up.

Writing on it has to be a pain. You have to hold it up.

The only benefit I see is being an ebook reader with internet. But, It does not have the paper like screen. I'm not so sure how many people will want to read from it.

The new netbooks with the ion chip will send this thing the way of apple tv.
 
Like all tech products, they'll work out the limitations. I'm clearly not going to shell money for one now. But as someone who is looking to replace his laptop in the next few years, it's not too bad.

Look at the current generation of iPods. games, takes video, etc. Now compare that to the first gen iPod, or even the 5th gen. The point is not what this device is capable of today. It's what the device is capable of once developers get their hands on it.

That's a good point. I think people were expecting new innovations a la the iPhone. That product looked nothing like current smartphones and just blew people away.

Ars Technica (a nifty tech website) compares the iPad to the first iPods. Similar stuff existed, but the iPod did it better and thus became the dominant mp3 player. Over the 8 years or so it's been around, it's evolved into something that would've been unheard of at the time (i.e. a portable computer).

But there are two big caveats that I see with the iPad. 1) The mp3 player was bound to become super popular because its a no brainer to carry around a device that's smaller than your CD player, but carries 50x the music. So, the mp3 player was gonna get big, regardless of whether or not Apple stepped in. 2) Apple made the best mp3 player, and thus rode the wave of increasing popularity.

For me, whether #1 is true for a tablet is questionable. No one really knows how many tablets total (from all companies) are gonna get sold. There are more trade-offs than going from CD to mp3 had. So, there's no guarantee tablets will get really popular, like mp3 players did. And without #1, #2 is a moot point. And as others have pointed out, the iPad maybe isn't going to be the best tablet out there. It's got limitations (multiple apps open, Flash support, etc.) that other tablets may not have. So, the real question is whether the market is there and whether Apple is really doing it so much better than everyone else.
 
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