Apple's iPad

Initial article on MSNBC.com asks "Did Apple consult any women before naming this thing?"

I am willing to cut them some slack on the name seeing as how companies trying to ride apples coat tails have already taken iSlate and iTablet.

I can imagine many things it 'could' do - but it depends on the A4 and it's capabilities. The Photoshop App is neat, but no where near the real thing. If this is the iPhone OS, then this little processor is probably overpowered, which means room to use real apps. My Lenovo S10 has been serving really well as a storage medium; editing is very limited with LR, mostly because the screen.

That said, I'll probably get one for my myself for my birthday - I've surely spent more and less in the past My iPhone has made travel, waiting in lines, looking up stuff and entertainment much more enjoyable - I'm sure this could add to that. The only thing is that I read a lot, like a novel a week, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to read from this screen hours at a time.

I am looking forward to reading on it, I think I am the only one that doesn't like reading on e-ink I find myself reading downloaded books on my iphone or laptop and not the kindle, just don't like it.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #9484783
Initial article on MSNBC.com asks "Did Apple consult any women before naming this thing?"

Well, the iCouldHaveDoneBetterBu​tChoseNotTo is a sexy looking screen, but that's about it.

Processor? Sure it's as fast as some of the new HTC phones, but that's it. Unless Apple threw in something interesting... but if they did, they would have already stated it.

Battery life? Ok on paper, but we'll end up seeing at most 6 hours (assuming very underpowered 2W of LED backlighting, and everything else taking up another 2W. Most wireless/3g combos are over .5W themselves, and the A4 is likely to be at least 1W) of regular use.

Media capabilities? HP slate will do everything better, hell my Zune does better quality h264 with less limitations (mov or mp4 container rather than just mov, 3.5mbps rather than 2.5, WMV and possible upcomming support for Xvid vs... well just h264). Can't even output to HDTVs at 720p... come on, I thought they were trying to outdo microsoft here, not just make a bigger ipod.

Mail Support? I dunno, my phone has all those features and more. And it's not even considered a true smartphone. Even the iPod has the same stuff more or less, just not as pretty.

Youtube support? No 1080p, that much is for sure. Hell, if google gets dropped for bing, they have the right to pull youtube thanks to the youtube ULA (fact they need to use the youtube interface and can't pull off of feeds or use third party viewers).

Flash Support? You think that apple could do something about this already, it's one of those things everyone I know wants on their ipod/iphone, they clearly have enough processing power, so it's an OS thing.

Multitasking? Again, one of the limitations Apple just doesn't seem to care about. Perhaps the device just doesn't have enough memory or processor resources to actually multitask, but there's ways around it, palm has, windows mobile has, it's not that hard.

Now to the mixed views part:

Screen:
On paper, looks to be the second best screen for a media player, after the Zune, only a reasonable size so you can actually watch DVD quality video. But it can only do DVD quality letterbox video. Can't do 720p, can't even do 1080p across two screens. Not even widescreen. I can understand people like letterbox screens for vertical viewing, but for media, we need no less than 16:10, preferably 16:9.

Touch Capability:
Apple's already proven their touch interfaces are one of the best around. But they haven't really improved much on it hardware or software wise. They didn't even decide to include a capacitance stylus or built in OneNote like program. From the show and online specs, iWork for iPad has not been confirmed to have anything other than OSK input. They could have also added a built in photo editor instead of letting third party programs be required.

OS:
This can go both ways. Sure it's not as powerful as a laptop so shouldn't run OSX, but something of this size needs more than just the iphone OS. Maybe even the ability to run non-apple store apps would have been enough for most. I think this will be the biggest make or break for apple. Can't speak for the general public, so not sure it'll fly.
But one thing is certain... that photo app was taken straight out of MS Surface/HP Touch.

Size, weight, cost:
Lets admit it, the device is sexy. Kind of like the hot girl across the street. But is she a 40footer? Depends on how you look at it. So lets break it down.

.5" thick. Or is that .5" thin? Either way, it's thinner than the macbook air, but is it actually that thin? Depends on what you compare it to. Compared to media players, that's just plain bloated; Zune HD is .35", iPod touch is .33". Compared to laptops? depends, Dell's Vostro v13 is only .65", and it's got full on laptop specs, and there are plenty of laptops (with dvd drives like the v13) in the sub .8" category. Compared to others in the category? Can't say just yet, HP Slate and others haven't been fully released, only announced.

At 1.5lb, it's light, no doubt about that. Unless it's just a larger iPhone to you, then it's 5x the weight. Compared to light laptops like the v13 above, it's only half the weight. So here it's all about how you see it. But the average between the two isn't looking good there.

It only costs 499? Must be the cheapest Mac... ever... to not be a mac... Sure 499 sounds enticing, but if this is going to be your HD video toting, photograph storing, music archiving monster, 16gb doesn't sound too appetizing. 64gb option? $700 doesn't sound as appetizing now. $830 for added 3g and $30/mo for your ebook needs? Suddenly not that great of a deal. You can find plenty of laptops with 3g for much less (though you'll pay more for 3g in the long run, unless you're on a tethering plan), sure no IPS screen, but 99% of people out there don't even know what an IPS screen is. Hell, the v13 is $449, and several netbooks can be had with 3g for as little as $99 (or without for as little as $325). Can it be cost effective? could have been if they just added a damn hdmi video input... Then it would be a video SLR user's best friend.


More on that last thought, all Apple had to do to make this amazing, even if it added $50 to the price, was to add in HDMI output AND input. Plug the IPS straight into the iPad, have some sort of app that displayed the video, and presto, the most amazing(ly cheap) external display for a 5d/7d ever made. Built in battery pack and the ability to control the camera too. What else could you want?


Too early to say this thing will be the next ipod or the next newton, but it's not looking great right now.


EDIT: As for the name... http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=FTzhXMbOWHE (NSFW-C-F)

Could of been cool, instead I think its going to be the next Apple TV.

Honestly, I can see where Apple is going with it. For most people, it won't matter and they'll settle for an iPod Touch or a Windows based Tablet. The only thing that's making me consider it just a bit is the price. Not bad starting at $499.

I'm a Droid phone user, so I a skeptical Google user, was under the impression from their initial remarks that this thing was going to be magical and a game changer. I was less than impressed, but have had time to think of ways it could be used with photography.

1. Tethering. Currently, there is a camera connection kit and also SD card connector. For those of us who use CF, it's probably not very useful. Plus, unless you want to carry around a Man-Purse, Tethering would be just awkward. However, it would be nice to have instant previewing of images as well as a off-camera backup of the files. Currently, I use an Epson P-7000 as my tethering device vs. a laptop, and is clunky. Can't imaging something bigger.

2. Wireless Tethering. Think eye-fi card. Eye-fi just announced on 1/5 that they will be releasing an iPhone app to be able to send images from the eye-fi card directly to macbook or iphone. Since they claim that apps for the iPhone will work on the iPad, all you need is a CF/SD adapter, and you have instant wireless tethering. (Yes, they already have this on the pre-2.0 version of android, and it's free.) Being able to see your images on a 1024x768 screen would be nice, but not as nice as if it came with an OLED screen.

3. Electronic Portfolio. Being able to connect to my smugmug page, or even hold images from my portfolio in the gallery would be nice. I think the coolness factor says something as well, but I'm sure there are a lot of people on this forum who wouldn't think that an iPad would make your business stand out at all. I wanna hold one in my hand before I make any decisions.

4. Booking / Expense tracking / Availability Calendaring / Contracts / etc with iWork. I'm the type of person that would love to be able to create a custom app for my photo business on this thing, but going through the Apple Development process would probably be a hassle, with no guarantees that the app would be approved.

5. Photo Journalism: Using the "aGPS" version would help geocode all images as they came in off your camera, and instantly blog to the internet.

6. Photography eBooks, kelby Videos, manuals, tutorials, and web content related to your equipment all at your fingertips. Handy.

Hopefully, this will set the bar for others like Google, and these types of devices will evolve fairly quickly.

I was hoping for it to be my out-in-the-field photo editor. Again, I was hoping i'd be able to run Lightroom but looks as though it can't even handle a RAW file or a CF card.

I guess if it did everything that a Macbook currently does then there'd be no need for a Macbook!

A bit bummed actually...

basroil wrote in post #9485506



Well, the iCouldHaveDoneBetterBu​tChoseNotTo is a sexy looking screen, but that's about it.

Processor? Sure it's as fast as some of the new HTC phones, but that's it. Unless Apple threw in something interesting... but if they did, they would have already stated it.

Battery life? Ok on paper, but we'll end up seeing at most 6 hours (assuming very underpowered 2W of LED backlighting, and everything else taking up another 2W. Most wireless/3g combos are over .5W themselves, and the A4 is likely to be at least 1W) of regular use.

Media capabilities? HP slate will do everything better, hell my Zune does better quality h264 with less limitations (mov or mp4 container rather than just mov, 3.5mbps rather than 2.5, WMV and possible upcomming support for Xvid vs... well just h264). Can't even output to HDTVs at 720p... come on, I thought they were trying to outdo microsoft here, not just make a bigger ipod.

Mail Support? I dunno, my phone has all those features and more. And it's not even considered a true smartphone. Even the iPod has the same stuff more or less, just not as pretty.

Youtube support? No 1080p, that much is for sure. Hell, if google gets dropped for bing, they have the right to pull youtube thanks to the youtube ULA (fact they need to use the youtube interface and can't pull off of feeds or use third party viewers).

Flash Support? You think that apple could do something about this already, it's one of those things everyone I know wants on their ipod/iphone, they clearly have enough processing power, so it's an OS thing.

Multitasking? Again, one of the limitations Apple just doesn't seem to care about. Perhaps the device just doesn't have enough memory or processor resources to actually multitask, but there's ways around it, palm has, windows mobile has, it's not that hard.

Now to the mixed views part:

Screen:
On paper, looks to be the second best screen for a media player, after the Zune, only a reasonable size so you can actually watch DVD quality video. But it can only do DVD quality letterbox video. Can't do 720p, can't even do 1080p across two screens. Not even widescreen. I can understand people like letterbox screens for vertical viewing, but for media, we need no less than 16:10, preferably 16:9.

Touch Capability:
Apple's already proven their touch interfaces are one of the best around. But they haven't really improved much on it hardware or software wise. They didn't even decide to include a capacitance stylus or built in OneNote like program. From the show and online specs, iWork for iPad has not been confirmed to have anything other than OSK input. They could have also added a built in photo editor instead of letting third party programs be required.

OS:
This can go both ways. Sure it's not as powerful as a laptop so shouldn't run OSX, but something of this size needs more than just the iphone OS. Maybe even the ability to run non-apple store apps would have been enough for most. I think this will be the biggest make or break for apple. Can't speak for the general public, so not sure it'll fly.
But one thing is certain... that photo app was taken straight out of MS Surface/HP Touch.

Size, weight, cost:
Lets admit it, the device is sexy. Kind of like the hot girl across the street. But is she a 40footer? Depends on how you look at it. So lets break it down.

.5" thick. Or is that .5" thin? Either way, it's thinner than the macbook air, but is it actually that thin? Depends on what you compare it to. Compared to media players, that's just plain bloated; Zune HD is .35", iPod touch is .33". Compared to laptops? depends, Dell's Vostro v13 is only .65", and it's got full on laptop specs, and there are plenty of laptops (with dvd drives like the v13) in the sub .8" category. Compared to others in the category? Can't say just yet, HP Slate and others haven't been fully released, only announced.

At 1.5lb, it's light, no doubt about that. Unless it's just a larger iPhone to you, then it's 5x the weight. Compared to light laptops like the v13 above, it's only half the weight. So here it's all about how you see it. But the average between the two isn't looking good there.

It only costs 499? Must be the cheapest Mac... ever... to not be a mac... Sure 499 sounds enticing, but if this is going to be your HD video toting, photograph storing, music archiving monster, 16gb doesn't sound too appetizing. 64gb option? $700 doesn't sound as appetizing now. $830 for added 3g and $30/mo for your ebook needs? Suddenly not that great of a deal. You can find plenty of laptops with 3g for much less (though you'll pay more for 3g in the long run, unless you're on a tethering plan), sure no IPS screen, but 99% of people out there don't even know what an IPS screen is. Hell, the v13 is $449, and several netbooks can be had with 3g for as little as $99 (or without for as little as $325). Can it be cost effective? could have been if they just added a damn hdmi video input... Then it would be a video SLR user's best friend.


More on that last thought, all Apple had to do to make this amazing, even if it added $50 to the price, was to add in HDMI output AND input. Plug the IPS straight into the iPad, have some sort of app that displayed the video, and presto, the most amazing(ly cheap) external display for a 5d/7d ever made. Built in battery pack and the ability to control the camera too. What else could you want?


Too early to say this thing will be the next ipod or the next newton, but it's not looking great right now.


EDIT: As for the name... http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=FTzhXMbOWHE (NSFW-C-F)

The processor, from what I've heard so far is the most powerful mobile processor on the market. It's also Apple's first CPU, which in itself is very impressive. As far as expandable memory, it's pretty obvious. Why buy anything above the 16GB iPod/iPad if you could just carry around a few 32GB cards in your pocket?

That said, most people were a little underwhelmed, but it will sell - it is beautiful, easy, uses established techniques/technologie​s and will be extremely supported right out the doors. It looks fun, a lot more fun than the Kindel & nook which it's aimed at, not laptops. It looks extremely responsive in live tests too. I've had to work with many smart phones to attach them to our network or teach people how to use them and by far the iPhone was more responsive, easy to use and more polished. Not that other devices are not good, but all of them lack an OS or strategy that 'works'. It's all about the 'feel' of the OS (OS X and iPod) .

I agree that Apple 'should' have put a little more effort when it comes to HD (HDMI) but I know why they didn't add it. It's probably the only way third parties will allow their content on i products. It's also the main reason they make that archaic database naming architecture on iPods. Microsoft can do it because companies allow them to because the industry hates the fact that Apple has so much power over them (like Walmart with music).

Price? It's cheaper than many smart phones without contract. I find that incredible. Sprint's HTC Touch Pro2 for instance is $600 without contract and the iPhone is something like $800. The technology to make these devices so thin is very expensive and fixing them is a REAL pain (watch Techzilla latest show on iPhone screen replacement).

I'm still sketch about how it will work, but the iPad Camera Connection Kit looks interesting. I'm wondering if you will be able to import things other than photos and videos - in theory I don't see a reason why it shouldn't. Apple would have to limit them like they do the iPhone's. I'm also sure the OS will be hacked within six months giving that ability That USB connector leaves a lot of options open.

It has a Mic, so that mean's Skype (bluetooth headset functionality?). It looks to support Flash, so that means games, games and more games.

It's a capable product, well priced at 16GB (3G is a bit much - AT&T kickback maybe?), It's not overwhelming, but it's a good product - for what it is.

Now, lets see what sort of apps will come....

Apps will make the ipad great, I know every one was hoping for a macbook tablet, but really has anyone used one for doing work stuff? I see why the tablets have really failed. My handwriting stinks and none of them have been able to convert my writing to text. I can see adobe doing a lightroom app or maybe apple will have aperature app out soon. I say hang on and see where this thing goes... I would give up my camera before I gave up my iphone and I am a pc person.

MaxxuM wrote in post #9486628
The processor, from what I've heard so far is the most powerful mobile processor on the market. It's also Apple's first CPU, which in itself is very impressive. As far as expandable memory, it's pretty obvious. Why buy anything above the 16GB iPod/iPad if you could just carry around a few 32GB cards in your pocket?

1) Doesn't support SD cards out of the box, you need to use the camera kit, which likely adds another $50 or more
2) Apple's never supported adding music and videos from external sources except for importing from removable media to local media. Don't see why that's going to change.
3) Apple has "made" processors in the past, especially around the time of the first powerpc chips. They weren't anything to write home about. And just because it has the apple logo doesn't mean it's suddenly better. A4 just seems like a stripped down A9 in terms of naming, but it's probably comparable in power to tegra, MAYBE a bit better if it uses the four core approach for an ARM11.

That said, most people were a little underwhelmed, but it will sell - it is beautiful, easy, uses established techniques/technologie​s and will be extremely supported right out the doors. It looks fun, a lot more fun than the Kindel & nook which it's aimed at, not laptops. It looks extremely responsive in live tests too. I've had to work with many smart phones to attach them to our network or teach people how to use them and by far the iPhone was more responsive, easy to use and more polished. Not that other devices are not good, but all of them lack an OS or strategy that 'works'. It's all about the 'feel' of the OS (OS X and iPod) .

Basically, the iPad is in a very unstable territory. Too many features to be an e-reader, not enough to be a slate type, so far there's nothing like it... and honestly, not much room for it once the slate types start popping in.

I agree that Apple 'should' have put a little more effort when it comes to HD (HDMI) but I know why they didn't add it. It's probably the only way third parties will allow their content on i products. It's also the main reason they make that archaic database naming architecture on iPods. Microsoft can do it because companies allow them to because the industry hates the fact that Apple has so much power over them (like Walmart with music).

Price? It's cheaper than many smart phones without contract. I find that incredible. Sprint's HTC Touch Pro2 for instance is $600 without contract and the iPhone is something like $800. The technology to make these devices so thin is very expensive and fixing them is a REAL pain (watch Techzilla latest show on iPhone screen replacement).

Modern smart phones regularly make the iphone look slow, especially the snapdragon ones (that aren't underclocked). And for a device where you WILL pay $500 (few people buy smartphones unlocked, so most only pay maybe $400), not really anything that will convince most people to keep it in a bag rather than their pocket.

I'm still sketch about how it will work, but the iPad Camera Connection Kit looks interesting. I'm wondering if you will be able to import things other than photos and videos - in theory I don't see a reason why it shouldn't. Apple would have to limit them like they do the iPhone's. I'm also sure the OS will be hacked within six months giving that ability That USB connector leaves a lot of options open.

In PC/Linux theory, yes, there's nothing to stop you from getting extra functionality, maybe even EOS Utility like programs... But this is an apple product, and theory can't always be put into use. Unless the iPad SDK adds a lot of features, the OS will be the biggest issue to getting programs that do cool things, even if it gets hacked it a day like the iPod touch.

It has a Mic, so that mean's Skype (bluetooth headset functionality?). It looks to support Flash, so that means games, games and more games.

Doesn't support flash... so that means, kind of useless there. If it only had flash, then I could see this thing actually having a nitch to cling onto.

It's a capable product, well priced at 16GB (3G is a bit much - AT&T kickback maybe?), It's not overwhelming, but it's a good product - for what it is.

Now, lets see what sort of apps will come....

As for apps... I'll stick to waiting for the HP Slate and others and just putting my applications there, none of these snippits. You know, EOS Utility, Office 2010, Photoshop, LR3, etc.

Maxxum from what I have hear it does not support flash which to be honest I am happy about, the sooner flash is pushed to the back burner the better it's a closed proprietary piece of crapware if it was open source it would be far better optimized by now and with both apple and google backing HTML5 I hope that will be the future. I just got done talking to a few friends that were at the event and have had hands on time with it and they have all have really positive reviews. And no they are not all apple fanboys one is a hardcore linux dev. They were all very impressed with the UI and said the apps built for it like the iwork and calendaring apps are closer to desktop apps then just scaled up iphone apps. Can't wait to get one my hands.

Everyone needs to check out this Apple iPad video:

Apple iPad Video

LMAO!

Todd Lambert wrote in post #9487015
Everyone needs to check out this Apple iPad video:

Apple iPad Video

LMAO!

Already posted it