(no subject)

[theweaselking]

EDIT: Apparently the iPad has a headphone jack. And yes, I *know* it's 1/3 the weight and the price of the HP, but that's not the point. The point is that 7 years ago HP had a *more powerful* version of the same product, and that this graphic is funny.

The iPad is, fundamentally, an iPod Touch with a usable-sized interface and a halfway-decent HDD size. That's not a bad thing - the Touch was a piece of shit precisely *because* it was too small to have a decent portable computer interface, didn't have enough storage to be an MP3 player, and, without the iPhone's data connection, didn't give near-universal email/web access, making it a failure as an *ultra*portable computer. This is a very large improvement! Still not a fan of the overpricing, though.

Comments

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

Specifications which are glaring by their absence: thickness and weight.

Not that I'm an iPad fan (No headphone jack? Really?), I'm just pointing out that these are not insignificant factors in a handheld device.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Also price! Price for the HP is not mentioned, and I'm willing to bet it's huge compared to the Mac cPad.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

In fact:

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

Winner.

[fearmeforiampink]

Another glaring absence: Cost.

The iPad costs something in the region of a third what the HP thing did.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Seven years ago the iPad would've cost a lot more too. The price of components has come down enormously over the years.

-- Steve is vastly underwhelmed by the iPod XL.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Weasel's a hater.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I did already point that out, before you did.

Still funny!

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Weighing in at 4.0lb/1.8kg with the keyboard and 3.1 lb/1.4 kg pounds [without] keyboard...

cite

Which is almost exactly what the Mac cPad weighs.

The primary advantage of the iPad over the seven year old TC1100 is in battery life; ~9 hours versus the older unit's ~2.5. However, the TC1100 allows you to read ebooks and play music at the same time whereas Apple's new wunderkind allows only one app to run at a time.

-- Steve shakes his head at all those who see the iPad as something new.

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

Where do people keep getting the idea that the iPad won't be able to play music and do other things at the same time? I've had it confirmed from people who got to play with the device that it can do that, just like the iPhone/iPod Touch can. That it's essentially the only multi-tasking the device can do is sad, but it will do it.

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

What's a cPad? The iPad weighs 1.6 lbs at most (a 10th of a pound less for the Wi-Fi only model).

Really, people...I don't even like the thing, but at least I check my facts.

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

OK, I just went and checked, and the iPad totally has a headphone jack. That really was unbelievable.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

The iPad has a standard 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack built in. According to Apple at any rate.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oh, and:

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Just because you can't quantify design, narrative, and marketing, doesn't mean that they're not important.

I see a lot of critiques of the iPad - and of Apple in general - that assume that only Technical People buy computers. That's not true and hasn't been for at least a decade. Apple will make a few concessions to Technical People, but the bulk of their target market is people who don't give a rat's ass about DRM, a profusion of ports, and CPU-RAM-HD speeds. They want something that Just Works. Which, the numbers say, Apple has been very good at giving them.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Compatibility is a giant issue and I suspect that the iPad will have one up on the HP thing in that area. Also, when HP came out with their tablet, the world was not ready for it. now people are used to carrying around a device to handle all their stuff for them. granted, I see no reason not to just keep using my phone for that, but we'll see.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Single-use crippleware with advanced functionality being made impossible *by design* will always annoy me - but in this case, I do think that the idea of an iPod Touch with a usable screen size is a decent one. This image is just *hilarious*.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

I would say doesn't break vs just works. After all in my experience macs don't work or at least do very little of what I want a computer to do. From what little I have looked at the iPad is just an iPhone or Touch that is bloated and retaining water.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's a Touch with a *usable* screen, HDD, and interface size.

Much too expensive for that, but not a bad decision!

[jasmine-koran.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have a touch, and I'm actually quite happy with it. I've got 2000 songs on it with room for more, it gets me wireless access, I can take notes on it, play games and keep my address book. I love it, frankly.

[runewise.livejournal.com]

I was particularly underwhelmed by this development in technology myself, as it happens. As for iPods, I'll hold onto my video classic until it quits, and then I likely won't buy Apple again, for exactly the reason that they haven't really innovated anything on their own, ever. However well-made.

[kafziel.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's hardly fair. They've innovated on pricing models.

Out of curiosity, I went to the Apple site and tried to build a desktop that approximated my current desktop in hardware specs. Lot of things I couldn't get as good as mine, but ultimate it ended up being priced at almost exactly $3000. My desktop was built from parts for a grand.

Of course, that's without things like "I can mirror drives in software in Windows, but Apple wants me to pay them $700 for a RAID card to do it."

[reyl.livejournal.com]

The more I read about the iPad, the more I want a Kindle.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The kindle costs the same, does less, supports Amazon, and is heavily DRM-hobbled. The iPad may be an overpriced Touch saddled with Apple's customary crippleware to make it incapable of anything beyond bare-bones amateur usage, but at least it's possible to *own* things that go on it.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I think I get it now. Jobs didn't make this device to make money - he made it just to piss people off. Jobs is sitting in a room somewhere with three half-naked women, reading all of the posts like these, and laughing through his champagne glass. You're all being Apple'rolled.