

Ars Technica reviews the iPad - mhansen
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/04/ipad-review.ars

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anon-e-moose
Does it seem weird to anyone else that iTunes, ostensibly a music library
program and music store interface, is now in charge of activating phones and
tablet PCs, as well as managing their applications and shared files? Shouldn't
there be a separate purpose built program for that?

Seems to fly in the face of Apple's vaunted design and organization.....

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sid0
I think they're tacking on features to iTunes instead of creating a separate
application because iTunes already works on Windows.

edit: well, for some definition of work anyway.

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cloudwalking
Perhaps more importantly, _everybody already has iTunes._ Apple can leave out
an entire step from the user experience (and one of the more frustrating ones,
at that): "install new software".

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snprbob86
iTunes could be the bootstrapper that installs a slimmed down version of
itself and the other broken out applications.

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bruceboughton
Yes, and then you have to teach your users about this new program... for what
exactly?

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mstevens
You stop having to teach new users that a program called iTunes does a wide
variety of non tune related tasks.

~~~
bruceboughton
There's quite a large install base to retrain. The iPhone is, uhhh, pretty
popular.

Also, iTunes opens automatically when you plug an iDevice in which mitigates
some of this problem.

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bobbyi
Mitigates? The fact that iTunes is going to load up ever time I plug in my
ipod to charge it makes the software's bloatedness way worse.

~~~
superchink
I'm pretty sure you can disable this behavior with a checkbox.

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shin_lao
Not being able to copy my files in and out is a deal breaker for me. That's
sad as the device looks really neat.

I'm not interested in encouraging Apple to build an ecosystem where I have to
pay every time I move my data around.

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cloudwalking
Dropbox (<https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU0Nzc4MDQ5>) is cool, though the
iPad only lets you save pictures.

Airsharing (<http://avatron.com/apps/>) lets you (sort of) use the iPad as a
target drive.

~~~
jacquesm
Why should something that is _basic_ functionality require third party
services?

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cloudwalking
The user experience gleans a lot of simplicity by abstracting hiding the
filesystem. If you can't monkey with files, you can only break things
programmatically.

It's definitely different, and frustrating for superusers, but I think it will
be perfect for the majority of the population.

~~~
shin_lao
I'm sorry but you can both allow files to be moved (photo, music, movies,
documents) and abstract the file system.

When I move the photos from my camera to my computer, I _don't have to_ deal
with the file system at any moment.

~~~
GHFigs
Interesting choice of example, as loading photos from a camera _is_ something
the iPad can do without third-party software.

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stcredzero
The "base" Apple case is marvelous. It improves the usability by almost 50% by
increasing friction and letting you place or hold it more easily. Outdoors,
you can use the cover as a shade, and it is also two stands in one.

Before you complain about iPad ergonomics, get one!

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stcredzero
A moment of impressive slickness. I was watching this movie in iTunes on my
Macbook. I sync it to the iPad and play it in the Videos app just to try that
out, and _it resumes at exactly the point I left off_!

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jpcx01
Great plug in the review for a kickass iPad app called StreamToMe ($3). I've
been using it to mount my entire video library on my mac mini (with external
HD), and have access to view everything on my iPad. 1tb of movies / tv shows +
iPad is an amazing combo.

BTW... anyone know a good site to get like an RSS feed or something for new
ipad apps?

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marknutter
You could check out <http://landingpad.org/> but it doesn't seem to be updated
that often. Pretty though.

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samd
Apparently plugging in your device to a computer and mounting it like a flash
drive is too sophisticated for Apple's customers. These device manufacturers
need to get on the ball and start coming out with Android/Chrome tablets that
compete with the iPad like the Nexus One competes with the iPhone.

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there
fwiw, the author of the iSSH app mentioned in the article is already working
on better bluetooth keyboard support
(<http://twitter.com/canadacow/status/11572336655>) and even implementing a
split-screen mode with an integrated web browser to have a terminal next to a
browser for remote web app development
(<http://twitter.com/canadacow/status/11603198915>)

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blhack
> _The first is the arrival of the "app for that" era. Apple will provide you
> with a free book reader and a Web browser with basic PDF rendering
> capabilities. But if you don't like any of these, you can simply replace
> them, or use a different approach entirely._

Excuse me, what? Are they really touting the fact that apple _allows_ you to
install some apps that have been blessed by Steve The Jobs himself on a device
_that you own_ as a feature? An _era_ even?

