Apple's new iPad

[SF Klein]

An iPod Touch that has a 10" screen and can run Apple's iWork applications. Includes a new iBooks application that lets you download and read books & magazines with embedded video. All models include WiFi but there are models with both WiFi and 3G wireless data so you have internet access no matter where you are. Pricing starts at $499 in the US.

http://www.macworld.com/article/145938/ ... ment1.html

My initial reaction is that it's got that eye-candy appeal but I was expecting the screen to represent a larger percentage of the chassis. There's a 1" border or so all around it vs. an edge-to-edge screen. Still, it's nice to look at. The problem is trying to use the on-screen keyboard 2 handed - folks with bigger hands won't be able to type on it as comfortably as they can with a regular laptop keyboard. I've typically bought 1st generation Apple products and been pretty happy with them. This time around, I think I might wait for their 2nd generation version.

Other thoughts on this?

 

[legrandefromage]

thats a ******* big iPod...

 

[TheGreenRabbit]

Old idea, dare we say Newton ? or even mention Jerry Kaplan and Go who were working on this 20ish years ago and got stuffed by the big boys.

 

[perry]

I kinda figured it would be called an ipad ( even though it sounds like a ladies product if you know what I mean )

Obviously the mac fan boys will be all over it but will the general public be won over when there are currently quite a few tablets coming out ; does it offer any more than whats already available .

The border makes sense when you think it will likely get used in one hand resting against the forearm leaving the other hand to type etc .

I really want to like the tablets as it's a big step away from printed media for mags , books , papers etc and increasing their interaction but as I sit here on the sofa typing away on my netbook ( msi wind u100 for reference ) I would either have to hold the thing which is very inconvenient or get some kind of stand which makes the tablet form factor seem silly .

Who will buy it and what use will it see ?

 

[hamster]

You could use it for tablet tennis

 

[ringo]

I'm sorry you're going to look a complete co*k carrying that thing about.

never understood this tablet idea... if I was using it now instead of a laptop, I'd have it either on a table and not be able to see it properly or I'd be holding it and typing one handed.

Also, if the next gen ones are smaller - isn't the ultimate an itouch?

 

[stewlewis]

I'd like a tablet with long battery life, mutitouch and pressure sensitivity oh and a massive resolution. (My GPS had 800x480 on a 4.2" screen)

A4, Wacom technology, 1920x1080 so I can paint n doodle the great outdoors. Catalogue and edit photos while on the road.

Oh and multi touch would make a nice Ableton controller.

And the clarity of a Sony reader in mono for the books.

This is a start. But then Tablets have been around for donkeys, I played with Pen for Windows Computing back on win3.0

 

[SF Klein]

As an artist tool, I think a tablet is a cool idea. Imagine this iPad mounted on some sort of stalk in your car running real time Google Maps w/ GPS. Car makers charge upwards of $2,000 for Sat Nav but you can use this for less than 1/2 that amount.

One thing that I'm a bit tired of though is the lack of multi-tasking on the iPhone and the iPad also has that limitation. It seems like it would be more of an annoyance on the iPad because Apple is touting its email capabilities and being able to write docs and create spreadsheets. Don't know about you but when doing that sort of stuff, I'm constantly flipping back and forth between other docs, the web, email, photos, etc. If I understand this product correctly, you'd be hitting the Home button each and every time you needed to access a different app (just like you have to do on the iPhone). That would get pretty annoying after a while. But as a single task at a time type of device, I s'pose one could adapt. The form factor is pretty cool though and in an office environment is about the same as carrying a paper based notebook with you for note taking in meetings.

 

[LeeDevelopment]

I was disappointed at the 64GB max storage, if this is to compete with Netbooks it needs a much much much bigger bump up than that. It's also underpowered by the sounds of it.

I'm gonna sit it out and wait for the 128GB iPod Touch, that is the next thing I will be buying from Apple (unless they do a bigger one!).

 

[SF Klein]

I dunno if 64Gb will end up being such a limitation. FWIW, I use a MacBook Air with the 64Gb SSD drive and I can live with it because my music and photo library is on a Mac Mini so I just stream when I need those files.

With the iPad, Apple has a new MobileMe app that lets you store all your photos on their servers & access your photos for viewing when you want to = no hard drive space necessary for those.

For music and video...here's where I think it will get interesting (my chance to speculate here ). I'm betting that with iPhone 4.0, Apple will include some sort of streaming option that lets you access YOUR home music library no matter where you are. There's an app that I use for that right now called SimplifyMedia. Apple bought a company LaLa fairly recently and streaming was their forte.

So....if you can stream all your music and photos over the air no matter where you are, what do you really need the hard drive space for? I'm gonna hold off for iPad 2.0 though unless there's some extra stuff that it has that Apple chose to gloss over today.