
Joe Hewitt on the iPad - nirmal
http://joehewitt.com/post/ipad/
======
greendestiny
I almost didn't upvote this in deference for those who are (understandably)
sick of the iPad discussion. But it represents my viewpoint quite succinctly.

I don't support how closed the Apple platform is, but I think the iPhone OS is
great for a whole range of computing. On the positive side its created a
market for developers, without pushing out indie developers (like consoles
do).

I certainly have sympathy for the idea of teaching kids to program on these
devices, and how hard Apple will no doubt make that. While its going to be
hard to get any kind of interpreter on the device, I'm sure someone will
succeed eventually - and then we could well have a generation of kids who grow
up programming because of the device.

~~~
maqr
> While its going to be hard to get any kind of interpreter on the device, I'm
> sure someone will succeed eventually - and then we could well have a
> generation of kids who grow up programming because of the device.

Yes, someone will eventually succeed. There will be a jailbreak for this
device which will turn it into a more interesting platform for students and
technical users.

The complaint is that it should have been this way from the start, and we're
betting on a flaw in Apple's design in order to get the most of their product.

~~~
berntb
Why would a jailbreak be needed? What am I missing?

An iPad developer could compile up copies of some of life's goodies like bash,
emacs, Perl, Ruby, Python, some lisp variants, Apache, etc.

Then the developer write a little Mac-application which let the user apply for
the Apple Developer program. When that is granted, the application installs
the developer tools and downloads the iPad projects for emacs, etc.

Every user which use scripting applications will be his/her own developer.
Without jailbreaks.

~~~
dagw
I'm pretty sure you have to pay $100/year to sign up to the iPhone dev program
and I imagine the iPad dev program will be the same. So your idea works fine
except for the part where everybody who wants to install your package will
first have to pay Apple $100. I'm not sure how many people will be willing to
do that just to start learning about programming.

~~~
berntb
>>I'm not sure how many people will be willing to [pay a tax of $100/year]
just to start learning about programming.

Huh, learning? That is like saying people won't buy a car so they can learn to
drive... :-)

A user could have an iPad to _write_ and/or _run_ suitable scripting programs.
Like emacs. [Edit: Or other programs written with Perl/Python/Ruby/Lisp etc.]

If that is worth a tax of 8-9$/month will vary between users.

~~~
bad_user
> _If that is worth a tax of 8-9$/month will vary between users._

And between teenagers who may or may not have access to dad's credit card, or
between countries who may or may not have access to that program ;)

This also means that a user won't be able to install some software with a
single click ... he'll have to first go through the registration process, with
a valid credit-card, and some time on his hands.

I really don't know why people try to downplay this. If this model gets
popular (and it already is to some extent because of the iPhone) ... devs and
many regular users simply get proper fucked.

~~~
berntb
>> This also means that a user won't be able to install some software with a
single click

>> ... many regular users simply get proper fucked.

My point was to suggest automation of the process. I didn't imply that this
would be painless, just less painful than jailbreaks.

If it becomes common, even Steve Jobs will have to give in and have a simple
checkbox for allowing scripting apps. (Like different sets of installable
applications in Debian/Ubuntu).

------
netcan
If we leave aside the downsides, we are left with two major things here:

\- Simplified computer that the majority can handle fully on their own without
someone's help. They can choose what apps they want, get rid of ones they
don't want, etc. It _does_ take the stress & overhead away from installing
stuff on your machine. That means people will install stuff.

\- Assumed location awareness, connectivity, camera (eventually), mic,
headphones, accelerometer, ambient light sensor along with the UI is a
genuinely new paradigm

Those two things together have the potential to be a very big deal.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I don't believe it has GPS, so not so sure about the locational awareness bit.

~~~
Simucal
If I'm not wrong, I believe the 3g version has A-GPS.

~~~
rryyan
You are correct: <http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/> (left-most column under
"Location")

It looks like both the wifi and 3g versions have a digital compass, as well.

~~~
netcan
Wow. I never even considered that they would differ on something like that.

That's a substantial hit on the "it just works" front. Some apps will not be
able to do anything useful without this. Some people won't understand why.

~~~
illumin8
The reason why is that Qualcomm and most 3G chip manufacturers bundle GPS, as
it is required by federal law for 911 service. Just adding a standalone GPS
module to the Wifi version would probably cost about as much as adding a 3G
chip.

Btw, does anyone else find it striking how much patent licensing adds to the
cost of a device? I'm pretty sure Apple is passing the $130 3G upgrade along
at almost cost. These 3G chips have been out for years now and probably only
cost about $10-20 to manufacture, yet every 3G cellphone manufacturer gets
raped by patent licensing costs to the tune of $100+.

~~~
vetinari
Given that Ericsson F3507g mini-pcie card is $80 give or take, I doubt that
the $130 3G upgrade is at cost.

~~~
illumin8
Does the Ericsson card have a GPS radio and quad-band G3 as well, or just 3G?

------
andrewljohnson
I commented on a previous post that I wouldn't read another iPad article,
because all the ones I had read were tripe that bludgeoned the device for
ideological reasons, or praised it because it's shiny.

However, I respect Joe Hewitt's iPhone work and other writings, so I checked
out his article, and I finally got some real insight. This is certainly the
best iPad article I've read so far. The idea that we need to re-imagine all of
our current software with the capabilities of a large, responsive touchscreen
is a good take on the release.

The only thing that worries me is the risk... what's the chance people don't
buy these things? Apple has had a flop or two in its past, and even though I
develop iPhone apps, I'm a bit leery of developing iPad apps.

~~~
Timothee
During the keynote, they presented the iPad as "magical and revolutionary". Of
course, this is marketing, but I was thinking about it to try to see what
could be so magical and revolutionary about it.

For the magical part, sure it's a wild hyperbole. But I suppose you could say
that, in that it feels like it's the real beginning of the kind of interfaces
that have been imagined and dreamt of for many years on TV, in movies… and
considering the size of it, it is pretty amazing.

As far as revolutionary, my first impression was "how is that revolutionary
since everything it does an iPod Touch has been doing for a couple of years on
a smaller screen?". But I came to a similar conclusion as Joe Hewitt, in that
it's revolutionary (though it's also hyperbolic) because it shifts the
paradigms of computing and the way we think about computers. Yes, the
iPhone/iPod Touch are similar technically but the apps were still apps for an
advanced mobile phone and the size of the screen was in fact very limiting.

In a way, I feel that the iPad is what computers should have been from the
start if it had been possible at the time. For example, take the mouse. It was
a great invention to interact "directly" with what's on the screen, but if it
had been possible to have touchscreens then, I doubt mice would have been
used. Applications have always been a bunch of files in the filesystem and we
got used to that, but really that's something we don't really need to know and
something that Apple has been removing for quite some time on the Mac even,
with app bundles.

So, of course, we'll see what happens. But I think it's an interesting step.

 _PS: yes, I think I drank too much kool-aid_

~~~
aardvarkious
I still think that for most office uses, a mouse is better than a touch
screen. If I'm spending a lot of time entering data, a all-in-one touch screen
device is miles behind a monitor at eye level several feet away, a good
tactile keyboard flat on my desk, and a mouse a few inches away. Maybe I'm
constrained by what I already know, but I can't picture a touch device being
better.

------
zhyder
From a developer's point of view, how does the power of Android compare to
that of the iPhone OS? I haven't developed on either, but articles I've read
so far seem to indicate the two have pros and cons but are pretty evenly
matched overall. Of course the iPhone still attracts more developers because
it has more users.

Let's assume that Android-based smartphones become increasingly successful as
many predict, and that users find Android smartphones about as appealing as
iPhones. Tablets running Android have been announced, though no apps have been
optimized for the larger screen size yet. If Google released tablet-optimized
versions of the stock apps, and made the appropriate tweaks to the SDK and the
Market, wouldn't Android-based tablets be a close match to the iPad?

How come there hasn't been any excitement about the potential of Android-based
tablets?

~~~
buster
As a developer for Android devices, i must say this article makes me really
sad. How can a developer be satisfied with limitations and just put the "but
it's how it is to be more secure" stamp on it.

Let's see those 2 sentences that make really no sense: "it can't just read and
write willy-nilly to the file system, access hardware, or interfere with other
apps. In my mind, this is one of the best features of the OS." and: "As a
developer, it's a bit sad losing the ability to come up with crazy plugins and
daemons and system-level utilities, but I believe it's a tradeoff worth
making."

I've now owned Android devices since the G1 (the first), now switching to the
Nexus One. The nerd i am i probably installed hundreds of those apps, that are
not approved by someone. Not one of them did somehow brick my phone! The worst
thing that happens is that apps don't do what i want, some even crash (but
that's surprisingly rare). But still, they can run in the background,
communicate with each other, etc.

So, why am i telling this: If smart engineers can think about what a
smartphone OS should be like, it will support save mechanisms for
multitasking, for daemons and plugins. Behind Androids Interface are a lot of
very neat concepts working.(intents/broadcasts, man, i love that concept!)

From what i can tell:

\- iPhone OS is some stripped down Mac OS version, which probably has its
deficits in some areas. I believe that Apple just doesn't give us multitasking
because it has heavy impact on batterylife or security (because the OS wasn't
made for mobiles, in the beginning).

\- When chosing between a _free_ development platform on Java, with Eclipse on
every major platform and a subscription based development only with Mac OSX
and a language that is basically used nowhere else (Obj-C)... well, the choice
is clear for me. Google did a pretty good job with the Eclipse integration and
it's toolchain.

~~~
illumin8
_As a developer for Android devices, i must say this article makes me really
sad. How can a developer be satisfied with limitations and just put the "but
it's how it is to be more secure" stamp on it._

I find it ironic that an Android developer is saying this. Android only has
what, 256MB of available disk space for 3rd party programs? That is extremely
limiting for all kinds of useful apps that might need a local database, or for
large apps like games.

Also, the Android marketplace has similar limitations to the App store, but
none of the safety. Google can and will pull your app if it doesn't like it,
however, their post-release approval process lets malicious apps get through.
There's already been one phishing app released. It seems like Google has all
of the bad features of an open PC (viruses, worms, malware) and all of the bad
features of a sandbox (complete control over code execution, unless you root
your device).

~~~
buster
Well, you should get your facts straight first. "Android only has what, 256MB
of available disk space for 3rd party programs?"

That's nonsense. It depends on the device. Also, the G1 has far less then 256
MB free for apps, yet a typical app is around 100kB large. Also data can be on
the SD Card and future version of android will be able to install apps on the
sd card as well (maybe even the current version, don't know).

"Google can and will pull your app if it doesn't like it"

Where is the proof for that? Afaik they still have to show the behavior Apple
is showing constantly by pulling normal apps. Guess what, you can easily
install and use another market application and Google won't forbid you to do
so: <http://slideme.org/> is a good example. You can install it easily on an
_unrooted_ device like other applications.

I agree that the android market could use some approval process for
applications that need security (like banking apps). Something like the SSL-
Info in your browser. But that's about it. Also could you please point me to
any viruses and worms you are mentioning?

By the way, what do you mean by "complete control over code execution, unless
you root your device"? who is controling what exactly? If you mean native code
(i suppose you mean the sandbox is the dalvik vm), i should point you to
<http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/1.5_r1/index.html> .

------
sorbus
"The store may not be open, but the iPhone/iPad platform itself could hardly
be more open to tinkerers of all ages."

Considering it as an Apple product in the vein of the iPhone, with all the
limitations that go along with that? Yes. But considering it as a computer?
No.

~~~
stanleydrew
"...could hardly be more open...?" Except that you have to pay $100. Oh and
you have to develop on a Mac, so you should probably buy one of those too.

~~~
jsz0
$100 is only required if you want to publish your apps on Apple's App Store.
If you just want to tinker you can build the apps for yourself and let friends
use them also. I don't recall what the limitations are on that. As for the
requirement to own a computer to develop for it -- yeah... that's common.

~~~
maqr
Not true. Apple requires you to sign your application before the iPhone OS
will allow it to be installed. Also, the check is on the device itself, not in
iTunes.

There's only two ways to get the apps installed: 1) Pay $100. 2) Crack the
device.

Reference and instruction via networkpx:
[http://networkpx.blogspot.com/2009/09/compiling-
iphoneos-31-...](http://networkpx.blogspot.com/2009/09/compiling-
iphoneos-31-apps-with-xcode.html)

------
hypermatt
One of the few iPad articles that I actually enjoyed reading. Facebook on the
iPhone was a real reinvention of UI. Something we don't see often enough.

------
TerminalDummy
I think the iPad is good for what it is - a personal media player. It is NOT
the laptop/touchscreen hybrid next generation technology that we had hoped
for. I suspect as a PMP it will see wide success, but there is still a massive
void yet to be filled with a proper touchscreen laptop that can accommodate
all of our computing and graphic needs. We can only hope another company steps
up to the plate and delivers something truly revolutionary. Not just another
iPhone/PMP.

------
sshconnection
I have a hard time accepting his new found love for Apple when in the article
before last, he was ranting about the evils of Apple's app store approval
process. He claimed that he would no longer be making iPhone apps, and would
make web applications instead. Now, he says that the glorified iPod touch is
going force everyone to "re-imagine" their applications. Sorry, but I'll
remain skeptical thank you very much.

------
RyanMcGreal
> The store may not be open, but the iPhone/iPad platform itself could hardly
> be more open to tinkerers of all ages.

Really? Can I install an iPhone/iPad IDE and emulator on my Ubuntu
workstation?

------
mooted
iPad, as a device is a new opportunity for developers. But not an incredible
one. Open up the platform, and we can consider it incredible.

He calls the demand for open-computing and removal of restrictions a
"nonsense" .

~~~
mmastrac
I'm not sure if you are familiar with Joe Hewitt's backstory, but he's been
very vocally against the app store policies. In fact, he left the Facebook
iPhone application team over this:

"My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s
policies.” – Joe Hewitt"

ref: [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/joe-hewitt-developer-
of...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/joe-hewitt-developer-of-facebooks-
massively-popular-iphone-app-quits-the-project/)

~~~
mooted
Quoting him & disagreeing with him calling iPad platform an "incredible
opportunity" - gets me downmodded.

I laughed a little.

------
i386
Enough with these iPad stories, please?

