Right now my entire blog's in a very stream-of-consciousness mode. I'm writing lots of long unedited things every day just to get it out in time for an upcoming major revision.
I submitted this because I was a bit irked at how commentary here is steadfastly ignoring what the iPad is and how it's going to be sold. I enjoy critics as long as they understand what they're criticizing. Aaronsw's post was enough to provoke me into submitting this.
If anybody thinks this isn't appropriate tone for HN, feel free to flag it! I have no particular expectations for this submission.
Well, that's what I meant by "you're entirely right". I agree with you that these are points that are missing from a lot of the "geek" discussion about this, which seems to be the only discussion informing even the mainstream discussion about this so far.
And the "mouth-foamy" tone (Apple "the most powerful company that’s ever existed."?) kind of helps to make your point, so I'd suggest that it works both for and against you in that way.
Awesome! Anything that excuses my writing is fine in my book.
From the perspective of an art student Apple's essentially cornered every market now. Whether you're a multimedia programmer, a musician, a filmmaker, a newspaper editor, or a novelist, now Apple controls you on this thing. Even something like HTML5 support means that suddenly I don't have to worry about web standards for this entire block of the market, thanks to Webkit.
The good news is that it's in Apple's interest to appeal to artists and to smaller publishing groups. Between this and the Supreme Court's ruling this week, the University of the Arts is throwing lusty drunken celebrations. Every student here's just been told they're going to be employed and making a lot of money.
Whether you're a multimedia programmer, a musician, a filmmaker, a newspaper editor, or a novelist... you're unlikely to find the iPad more useful than a MacBook in any way.
Of course, I'm not an art student, so correct me if I'm wrong :)
Well... yes and no. Certainly there are certain things that artists need that the iPad won't be instantly equipped to handle. However, in terms of sales newspaper people and novelists will thrive with this, and I suspect this product will increase movie sales and rentals immensely. Meanwhile, I cannot emphasize how wonderful it is to have a product adhering to modern web standards. Makes me want to give up yelling at Firefox 3 and pursuing a career as iPad evangelist.
There's another way the iPad appeals to vain, picky art types, and that's how fringeless it is. Even OS X bothers me in small, subtle ways that my iPod touch avoided with its utterly simplistic design. Taking that design and building a computer out of it means I might actually finally appreciate a piece of hardware. Simplicity means losing hardcore technique, but I enjoy the thought of being able to doodle digital images with my hands.
I don't see how this would increase movie sales. Most people already have TVs, and TVs have much bigger screens than the iPad. So unless the iPad makes it much easier to deliver those HD movies on to your TV, I doubt it will do much. But even if it does do that, it'd be encroaching on the Apple TV's space.
Most people don't buy movies on their computer. It's more logical to buy a DVD set, which plays on both TV and computers, than it is to buy a digital movie that can't be moved back easily. Computers don't offer much of a movie-watching advantage, so the computer-movie market is floundering.
The iPhone lets me buy movies on the fly, which gives me a great convenience. But it's small. The iPad, on the other hand, lets me buy from anywhere, but it's large enough to make movies enjoyable. If I'm about to get on an 8-hour flight, maybe I buy a book and rent a movie. The fact that I can pay a small amount of money, get something to watch on the plane, and never have to worry with physical packaging, that's nice.
Certainly that encroaches on Apple TV. But Apple TV is a bastard son anyway.
Why would it be more convenient to pull out an iPad vs a Macbook Pro when you're on a plane? By that logic, you'd get an even bigger screen with your macbook pro, and it's practically just as easy to pull that out. So that should have increased sales already. Not to mention with your computer you can play non-DRM movies if you have those. If anything the iPad might decrease pre-flight movie sales, because the TSA would think it's witchcraft--i mean, a bomb.
I see the iPad as more of a home-mobile device, rather than a mobile device. That is, it's a device mainly for home use which allows you to be mobile around the house with your information, instead of a device you take outside. A laptop is a device you take outside, because it can do so much more if you need it--like work stuff. If you're going out you'd want to know you have a more capable device on hand just in case.
Why would an iPad be more convenient on a plane? Well, cramped conditions make it almost impossible to use a laptop in cattle class. But no such problem for a smaller device like an iPad (or, I find, a netbook - 2x3hr batteries for my netbook meant I could spend most of my SFO-London flight hacking, writing e-mail and drafting blog posts - I do use mutt and vim: if I were using Word and Outlook, a 1024x600 netbook with a crappy little trackpad might have been a bit too restrictive for me).
If the iPad gets the ten hours it claims, it may be perfect for frequent flyers who want their own music, video and books, and a bit of e-mail reading and document perusal on the side.
I can fit my Macbook Pro in "cattle class." And I figure since a Macbook and Macbook Air is much smaller they'd be much easier to fit. For watching movies the small trackpad wouldn't really matter. But hey, the iPad would probably be more suited to watching a movie on a plane, if only slightly more. But chances are if you're traveling, you've got your laptop with you anyways.
It would have been better if they had all the fancy touch controls on a macbook air size device that could flip open 350 degrees into a tablet, and flip back into a normal laptop.
Your essay is great. It makes me feel less alone in this world. I didn't find it full of vehemence.
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It is okay to speak with force. At times force is needed to cut through layers of of mental resistance. New ideas that we don't understand scare us. We fear what we don't understand. The points you are trying to make are over the head of most people. 99.9999999% don't get "it". If they did we would have more companies that could compete with apple not just copy apple.
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What do I mean by copy Apple? One example is the iPhone. If Apple never made the iPhone. What would phones look like right now? We would have the the Razor3 and it would allow us to download ring tones, not apps.
Heres some food for thought from Einstein:
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein
And the most important to this discussion:
"The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein
The iPad is not a solution to the question of: whats a better computer or whats a better phone. Just as the iPhone wasn't a better Razor.
I'm glad you like it! It's corny, but when people let me know they've enjoyed something of mine it makes it all worth the gritted teeth and the hurling laptops out windows.
> The iPad is not a solution to the question of: whats a better computer or whats a better phone. Just as the iPhone wasn't a better Razor.
The iPad is a consumer device in the truest sense of the word. It's a device that was built to make it as easy as possible for the user to consume media whether it's the Web, movies, music, photos, etc. Plain and simple.
Oh, and comparing the iPhone to the Razr is a bit of a strawman. There have been plenty of PDA-phones in the past: WindowsMobile phones, Palm PDA-phones, etc. They just never did provided a good enough interface to the user to really take off. So yes. The iPhone was an evolutionary leap instead of a revolutionary leap.
> At times force is needed to cut through layers of of mental resistance. New ideas that we don't understand scare us. We fear what we don't understand.
At the end of the day, the iPad is a consumer electronic device not a solution to world hunger. Please get some perspective. Writing a blog post praising the iPad when everyone else is disappointed with it is not some sort of 'shining moment' for journalism that will be recognized by generations to come as a turning point when the tide of Apple-haters was stemmed, ushering in the new Golden Era of Apple.
> 99.9999999% don't get "it"
I'd say that 98% of people don't even know that Apple had a keynote today.
> If they did we would have more companies that could compete with apple not just copy apple.
Most other companies are not in Apple's business. They are making hardware with some software thrown on to push the hardware, or they are selling some software for some hardware. Most companies don't have the attention to detail that Apple does. Yea, sometimes they screw things up (sometimes badly), but OS X doesn't have parts of OS7 hanging around in it the way that Windows Vista still had some little-used apps with icons from the Windows 3.1 days. Most other companies are just pushing their product out the door to turn a profit, but Apple prides itself on projecting an image of quality they way that a high-end car-maker does.
I also really don't like it when people get all uppity about 'copying.' "Who copied who" is a tired game in the software/hardware industry. The real issue is when someone copies something and claims it as their own, not when someone copies something. People adopting the techniques and methods of others is how progress is made.
If you want to play that game, then Apple copied the entire idea for the gui/mouse interface from Xerox. Apple also copied the functionality of Time Machine from countless other utilities that were mostly relegated to the realm of system admins (or 'power users' in the case of Linux/BSD + rsync/rdiff). You might say 'but they copied it better.' But if you want to start talking like that then you better suffix 'everyone copies Apple' with 'poorly' lest you imply that 'copying' at all is a bad thing (and there should be a stigma attached to it).
Oh, and comparing the iPhone to the Razr is a bit of a strawman.
The Razr, first time around, captured people's imaginations because it suddenly offered the deep, unheard of cultural need to have the world in your pocket and have it be so small and sleek that you forget what that means. The iPhone is very comparable, except when Apple did it they redefined world.
I'd say that 98% of people don't even know that Apple had a keynote today.
But when the commercials come out, 75% of people will drool.
If you look at it from a cultural perspective, Apple is once again selling us the future. It was already here, sure, but now it'll be at your doorstep, charged, as soon as you like.
> it suddenly offered the deep, unheard of cultural need to have the world in your pocket and have it be so small and sleek that you forget what that means
Maybe I missed those adverts, but the Razr was just a sleek design. Its claim to fame was how small it was. It was still just a phone though. It didn't offer 'the world in your pocket' unless you define 'the world' to mean 'a phone line and my contacts book.'
For what it's worth, check out the wikipedia page on the RAZR, specifically the section on Cultural Impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razr. Key quote: "The RAZR has been said to the 'iPod' of mobile phones. Being the slimmest phone during its release in 2004, it easily stood out amongst other phone models. IT has also been one of the most popular mobile phone models since its first release, until being surpassed by the iPhone 3G in November 2008..."
However, it notes this popularity was never matched outside the USA.
swernli nailed it. Prior to the Razr you could definitely own a cell phone, but it was the first one to dare that putting a phone line in your pocket could be easy, sleek, attractive. It took the extant technology and made it into a piece of future-stuff.
I also really don't like it when people get all uppity about 'copying.' "Who copied who" is a tired game in the software/hardware industry. The real issue is when someone copies something and claims it as their own, not when someone copies something. People adopting the techniques and methods of others is how progress is made.
I submitted this because I was a bit irked at how commentary here is steadfastly ignoring what the iPad is and how it's going to be sold. I enjoy critics as long as they understand what they're criticizing. Aaronsw's post was enough to provoke me into submitting this.
If anybody thinks this isn't appropriate tone for HN, feel free to flag it! I have no particular expectations for this submission.