iPad has missing features. Jonathan Ive’s response:
In many ways, it’s the things that are not there that we are most proud of. For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there’s nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with.
iPad will be copied by others. Ive’s reply:
It’s not for us to predict what others will do. We have to concentrate on what we think is right and offer it up.
Perfection, but an eminently usable perfection, by Ive:
If it works beautifully, it should also work robustly. It’s made for people to chuck onto the car seat and thrust into luggage without thinking. It’s not to be delicate with.
Here’s Steve Jobs on iPad:
I think the experience of using an iPad is going to be profound for many people. I really do. Genuinely profound. When people see how immersive the experience is, how directly you engage with it … the only word is magical.
Stephen Fry, the editor of The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again?:
I was not prepared, though, for how instant the relationship I formed with the device would be. I left Cupertino without an iPad, but I have since gotten my own, and it goes with me everywhere.
Oh! The Winnie the Pooh iBook is bundled with every iPad. Yay!
Comics in the 21st century, done right. Awesome. Source: Marvel
Has any other company ever demonstrated a restlessness to stray from the safe and proven, and actually invent things?
Well, yes, many companies have invented far greater things than the iPad. I don’t consider Apple a company that invents new things; Apple is a company that perfects what already exists and creates something that seems to not have existed before. Take a look at the iPhone: all of the components were there including multitouch technology, high-end mobile LCD manufacture, baseband chips, enclosure manufacturing, etc. What Apple did with the iPhone was it combined existing components and perfected the phone. Apple is doing that again with tablets in slab form.
I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop.
Unfortunately Mossberg doesn’t quite get the iPad. The iPad is something right in between the smartphone and the full-blown notebook. The iPad is not going to challenge the notebook’s primacy. I’ll tell you why… actually, Steve Jobs has already told us why. The iPad does a few things really well and these things don’t include editing videos, mastering DVDs, creating music, etc. These are all creative activities that once used to be dominated by desktops PCs and have slowly shifted to notebook PCs due to the incredible increase in mobile CPU capabilities. I’m also convinced it’s not that great for blogging as the Safari browser on the iPad does not support multiple tabs. The fact of the matter is the iPad is used primarily for media consumption with the ability for limited creative work. I do agree that the iPad is simply beautiful and beautifully simple.
At the very least, the iPad will likely drum up mass-market interest in tablet computing in ways that longtime tablet visionary and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could only dream of.
Baig ran off toward left field. The iPad is not about tablet computing per se. The iPad is a direct connection to media consumption. And a bit of creative work. Bill Gates probably still dreams of a day when tablet computing will happen with Microsoft’s Courier concept. I hope the company’s Courier concept becomes a reality as it really would convince me to drop my pad and pen.
And the techies are right about another thing: the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it—books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience—and a deeply satisfying one.
Pogue gets the iPad.
But having used the iPad for some time, I can tell you that the device just makes sense.
The rest of us (even most techies) will be thrilled that doing what we want to do on the iPad is generally effortless.
Wasow is quite an optimist. I wouldn’t assume any real techie would move away from specs and features and appreciate the iPad for what it is. I do agree the effortless interaction will be noticed internally even by techies but probably will not be publicly admitted with enthusiasm.
It turns out the iPad isn’t as much a laptop replacement as I thought (though it could easily be used as one). Instead, it’s an entirely new category of mobile device.
Mmm… didn’t Steve Jobs already mention this?
Just as the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android phones scratched an itch we didn’t know we had—somewhere between cellphone and notebook—the iPad hits a completely new pleasure spot.
That’s an interesting way to put it. I don’t quite agree about Android though. In my opinion the iPhone does everything that matters to ordinary folks much better than any Android phone can. WebOS on the Palm Pre is the closest thing to the iPhone OS and I appreciate the attention to the wonderful typography as well as multitasking. Oh and the QWERTY keyboard… there still is that something about a real mechanical keyboard. Source: Wired
When I first learned of OmmWriter late last year I was very excited. Finally, there was a way to focus on writing without all the distractions. OmmWriter takes over the entire screen and lets you write. There are simple icon-based “menus” that disappear when you start typing. Soothing music can be played in the background. I like the idea but there was just one thing. Once installed, OmmWriter takes up around 63.5 MB. That certainly isn’t very large when compared to Pages or Word, but I make it a habit to minimize resource usages on my Mac. I also try to limit the number of apps installed on my system. “What could be an alternative to OmmWriter?” I asked. I searched through Google and found a few but I was not satisfied. Then it hit me: the built in text editor called TextEdit. I changed the default font to Heofler Text, minimized all other applications and there I was. Just me a a blank canvas (menus can still be seen). I didn’t have to install additional software and TextEdit takes up just 16.3 MB (a bit more than I thought, but still considerably less than OmmWriter). This only works, in that it provides an environment similar to OmmWriter, because I use a simple gray background with absolutely no icons on my desktop. OmmWriter (www.ommwriter.com) is certainly a very well-designed app and is worth a try, but TextEdit is less and to me less is more.
Panasonic’s Lumix G2 is priced at US$799.95. You get to choose among three colors: red, blue, black. The G10 comes only in black with a price of $599.95. Both will be fitted with the Lumix G VARIO 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. lens. via Engadget
I’m sticking with iPhone HD. One major reason is that 4G will not be available on the AT&T network by the time the next generation iPhone rolls out in June. As far as I can tell AT&T will be field testing late this year with a rollout in 2011 (via iPhone Alley). I would peg an iPhone 4G to be released in 2012 after the iPhone HD. If I had it my way, I would get rid of all of these suffixes: the iPhone would be just iPhone, just like a MacBook Pro is a MacBook Pro. So what are some the juicy details of the iPhone HD? It is thinner than the 3GS. There is a flash on the back. The display is slightly smaller but has more pixels. There is a second microphone for noise cancellation. It is slightly heavier than the 3GS, by three grams according to Gizmodo. Has a larger battery inside (16% larger than the 3GS). Looks pretty solid. There’s even a crappy video of it.
This (above) little 4×4 buggy called the BeetleCam takes pictures like this (below).
The brainchild of shutterbugs Will Burrard-Lucas and his brother Matthew.
via Wired, Photo source: Burrard-Lucas.com
Apple is finally getting serious about resolution independence on displays. In the Mac OS X Reference Library there is reference titled Resolution Independence Guidelines:
Resolution independence allows greater flexibility with high-density displays by allowing a Quartz point to map to any number of pixels (or fractions thereof). You can no longer assume a 1:1 correspondence between a Quartz point and an onscreen pixel…
Many years ago a typical LCD sported a resolution of about 72 PPI. A Quartz point had a scale of about 72 units per inch and one Quartz point mapped to about one pixel. Not any more:
One a 144 dpi screen, a 200 x 200 image is one quarter the size of a comparable image on a 72 dpi screen.
Of course in displays we typically use pixels per inch or PPI. But the point here is that developers cannot assume a 1:1 ratio between a point and an onscreen pixel. Apple is introducing The Scale Factor, which is a new parameter that determine the ratio between a point and an onscreen pixel. At the moment a scale factor of 1.0 corresponds to 72 PPI. A display with 144 PPI will result in a scale factor of 2.0. Look at the example below. The physical font size stays the same between the two displays but with the higher resolution 108 PPI display with a 1.5 scaling factor the font is made up of more pixels and is much smoother.
I’m very excited that Apple is moving toward resolution independence with its developers. This will in turn make higher resolution displays eminently more valuable. via Daring Fireball
Tread 1 from Devon Works sports a thoroughly mechanical display. Brilliantly executed:
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