
Apple iPad - Oompa
http://www.apple.com/ipad/
======
timcederman
I am surprised that many of the comments so far are the equivalent of "No
wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

I'm excited at the very distinct deviation this is taking from the
keyboard/mouse/monitor paradigm in something other than a strictly portable
device. I think the OS looks pretty damn good and I can't wait to try using
one myself.

~~~
NathanKP
How can people be saying that it doesn't have wireless? It clearly has both
Wifi, and 3G just like an iPhone.

~~~
timcederman
[http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257...](http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257&tid=107)

~~~
eli
To be fair, the original iPod _was_ pretty lame.

It worked fine, but it wasn't especially cheap and it _only_ worked with a
relatively late model Mac. And in 2001, this meant something like 95% of
computer owners wouldn't be able to put any music on it.

~~~
philwelch
True, but I can still fit most of my music on a single original iPod, carry it
around in my pocket, and use the cool wheely interface to navigate through it,
which is loads more convenient than what everyone else did in 2001 (either
listen to one CD all day, or carry around a binder filled with CD's on a long
road trip, or carry the equivalent of one or two CD's around on a Rio).

------
Perceval
I wonder if the folks at Delicious Library are upset about Apple's new
'iBooks' app, that essentially looks the same as theirs.

[http://www.delicious-
monster.com/images/librarypage/screensh...](http://www.delicious-
monster.com/images/librarypage/screenshots/Delicious-Library.png)

[http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/136360/thumbs/s-IBOOKS-...](http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/136360/thumbs/s-IBOOKS-
STORE-large.jpg)

~~~
runevault
<http://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/8289792566>

<http://twitter.com/wilshipley/status/8290423381>

~~~
cmelbye
Ugh. Very lame on his part. His company doesn't magically hold exclusive
rights to a bookshelf with books on it. Thankfully he realized that iBooks and
Delicious Library are completely different products.

~~~
tvon
Well, I think there is doing something, and then doing something very well.
Delicious Library did the bookshelf thing very well, and the iBooks thing
seems to do it very well in a similar way.

I'm not saying he has a legal bone to pick or anything, just that he is
allowed a tweet or two to _hrmph_ about it.

~~~
cmelbye
Delicious Library is for cataloging your media and books. iBooks is iTunes but
for purchasing books. Pretty different purposes.

------
vitobcn
After seeing the iPad, I wonder if the JooJoo (CrunchPad) will even make it to
the market.

~~~
senko
If they can price it right (and don't lock it down), I think it'd be
interesting as a low-priced/more-open alternative to iPad.

In effect, JooJoo could run the iPad success in sense it doesn't have to
explain what it does - "it's like iPad, just <whatever>".

If iPad gets traction, I'm sure it'll provide an incentive for other companies
to follow. JooJoo is perfectly positioned there because they (supposedly?)
already have a working device.

~~~
mlinsey
According to the official JooJoo website (thejoojoo.com), the JooJoo is priced
at...$499.

Uh-oh.

------
edd
This is the interesting page from there: <http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/>

"1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)" Sounds like a nice
display.

~~~
rimantas
And it's IPS!

~~~
csmeder
The way Wikipedia describes IPS it has a better viewing angle but uses more
power. Is this the gist of IPS or is there more?

~~~
rimantas
+more accurate colors and no color shift with the viewing angle change. Pretty
much the best type of LCD. Usually you find IPS in the best monitors, and I am
not aware of any notebook with IPS screen.

~~~
dagw
While I will never buy a screen that isn't IPS for my computer, I question the
necessity of it in this device. IPS makes a great marketing point and will
make it look really shiny during demos, but I think it is the wrong tech for
this device for day to day use. If I had to choose between colour accuracy and
battery life, I'd much rather have the battery life. It's not like I'm going
to be editing photos for print on the iPad.

~~~
rimantas
My guess is that the viewing angle was a deciding factor there. While on
notebook you can adjust the screen so it is at useable angle this is not an
option for a tablet with no support. IPS matrix gets rid of that problem.

~~~
dagw
I don't know what kind of screen my IBM x41 has, but viewing angle has never
been any sort of problem when using it in tablet mode.

------
yan
I'm going to hold off my criticism until I spend more than 20-30 minutes with
it and see how well it fits my ideas of what a device like this should be.
Knowing Apple, their product design and eye for aesthetics, I wouldn't jump to
conclusions based on specs and photos of it.

------
joshfinnie
I am underwhelmed. I think they might have missed the mark on this product or
there are a lot of things they didn't discuss in their presentation today!

Multi-tasking? Flash?

~~~
lsb
How would you do multi-tasking, while promising ten hours of battery life?

~~~
dangrossman
Perhaps he values multi-tasking more than having ten hours of battery life.

~~~
jstevens85
I think the point is that the consumers Apple targets would value 10 hours
battery life over multitasking. Engineering is all about trade offs, and if
Apple were to deliver everything the geeks wanted (OSX, Flash, multitasking),
then Apple would end up with an overpriced, slow, thick, hot, sluggish, power
thirsty tablet that would only appeal to computer nerds.

------
roc
No integrated notes/sketches/diagrams? An odd oversight for a form-factor so
perfectly suited to it.

No mention of free-form annotation of documents/images? Another weird omission
for a device seemingly _built_ to free people from the limitations of
traditional mobile interaction.

An _iWork_ suite and kickstand/keyboard peripheral? That's positively
_Microsft-ian_.

A tri-fold leather folio _kickstand_? Alright, now we've steered directly into
_Sharper Image_ territory.

Seriously, what in the world just happened?

------
anigbrowl
I like it...but it's a USB client rather than a host. That's a hard pill for
me to swallow. I suspect I'll be getting a competitor's model with somewhat
inferior aesthetics and for maybe $100 less. I admire the product (and
especially their pricing, which was a surprise) but it doesn't arouse real
gear envy for me.

TBH I was hoping for haptic feedback and a webcam, or host connections that
would allow it to work as a generic console for other devices - which would
have driven the entry price to $800 or more, but felt really revolutionary.
Apple will do well out of this, but the competition is coming up a lot closer
than with the iPhone, where it was unarguably the best of its kind for a long
time.

~~~
ptomato
Has at least some USB host capabilities, as you can plug a camera into it.

------
kylec
The iPad will support the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, as well as VGA output from
the dock connector. This could be interesting.

~~~
icey
I saw that it has bluetooth, but I haven't seen anything about it supporting
the Bluetooth keyboard... source? (Or does the bluetooth keyboard work with
the iphone now?)

~~~
kylec
<http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/> under the "Accessories" heading.

~~~
icey
Okay, that is pretty nice.

------
jsm386
Pure speculation, but I wonder if they got that $29.99 unlimited plan out of
AT&T with no contract in exchange for keeping the iPhone exclusive...

~~~
netcan
Maybe, but not necessarily. Each new type of communication device threatens
old revenue streams of Telcos. Broadband/skype threatens long distance, 3g
threatens voice minute/SMS, but...

Overall, I think the total amount we spend on communication is going up like
mad. 10 years ago a sophisticated 5 person household had a landline phone, a
mobile phone and a dial up account or maybe a DSL. Today they have the phone,
5 mobiles(some of them expensive ones including lots of 3g acess), a home
broadband connection (network) and now they're looking at adding some other
device/plan package (Tablet, netbook, etc.).

As a rule, they don't really care that much about providing cheap additional
services. They care about cannibalising other stuff. This isn't likely to
replace anything. Apple is a good partner for avoiding skype-over-3G,
tethering or some other antisocial behaviour.

------
jsm386
Magical? Sure. Revolutionary? It's a giant iPod touch.

If this thing does sell, coupling it with 29.95/unlimited 3G on AT&T should do
wonders for the network.

~~~
NathanKP
Yeah, ATT is already overloaded. Offering unlimited access so cheaply will bog
it down even more. I hope AT&T will be beefing up their network over the next
few months.

~~~
roc
(relatively) no-one in America is going to choose to spend $130 more up-front
just for the pleasure of being ill-served by AT&T's data network.

That whole 'service' is a non-option in the US. At least until the iPhone is
available elsewhere and AT&T's network load lessens.

They've dragged their feet for 3 years to update the network for the wildly
successful iPhone. I doubt the iPad will push them any faster.

~~~
NathanKP
I agree, but it really is unfortunate that AT&T can't get with it, because
unlimited wireless access for $30 a month isn't a bad deal at all, unless of
course, it is really slow and unreliable.

------
simplegeek
Call me naive but I think my productivity problem can be solved now. I'm
thinking to get an iPad just for the email, HN and notes. That is, not check
email on my _work_ computer but rather go to iPad whenever feeling the itch to
check email/HN and etc. Not sure, but excited to try that idea ;)

~~~
Tichy
If that's really your desire, you could have gotten a cheaper netbook a long
time ago. On the other hand, if you happened to buy an iPad and wonder what to
do with it, then your idea might come in handy.

~~~
simplegeek
Panache, my friend ;)

------
poub
I call it le iMerde.

The main point for me is how Apple did come up with a such low resolution
(1024x768@132ppi) for a screen that you hold so close to your eyes? The
technology is there for much higher density screens. I was expecting Apple to
lead the way.

There is nothing that machine do better than any laptop out there (notebook,
laptops, etc.) And it’s the keypoint of the Steve keynote.

It’s a luxury machine designed to spend (and possibly waste) time and money by
being entertained and by buying more, more and more instant gratification
items without having a direct control of your expenses.

Kudos to Apple to be the best player in this category but it’s not a tool for
people creating stuff.

~~~
jcl
I have to wonder if it is perhaps due to the resolution of the iPhone. As I
understand it, most iPhone apps are hardcoded to the iPhone screen size, so if
Apple wanted to reuse iPhone apps on the iPad, it would either need to use an
itty-bitty screen or resize the display.

1024x768 is the smallest standard 4:3 resolution to fit a doubled iPhone
screen, which is 320x480, doubled to 640x960. Hardware support for pixel
doubling could be faster and use less power than scaling a textured 3D quad.
But regardless of how the scaling is performed, an integer multiple will
probably look better than scaling to an arbitrary size.

One undesirable artifact of doubling the iPhone screen on a 1024x768 screen is
that it would have borders all around the edges. And this is precisely what we
see on their demo page. <http://www.apple.com/ipad/app-store/>

~~~
frankus
The border does leave space for "out-of-band" touch areas, like the one to
toggle scaling.

------
Pahalial
I'm surprised at the lackluster 3G options. If I can't tether my iphone to
this - and the existence of a 3g model, combined with notable omission of any
talk of tethering certainly points to a resounding no - why would I have an
iphone rather than a rooted nexus one or Pre, which I could tether via wifi?

If I were Google/Palm, I'd work hard to get official, viable 3G->WiFi AP
tethering working by the time the iPad ships. Then advertise it far and wide.

I understand Apple/AT&T want the revenue from an additional data subscription,
but the option of saving $130 up front + $30/mo. is a pretty strong case
against going all Apple, at least for me.

------
tsuraan
I find it really strange that they advertise 720p playback, but they didn't
give it a 720p screen. I would expect the device to have a 1280x720 resolution
display (like some netbooks) instead of a 1024x768. I'm not sure what their
target user is, but I guess one who watches HD video isn't it. Still, it does
look interesting.

------
Tichy
My feeling is that it is fairly non-essential. But the same holds for the
iPod, and they sold loads of them. So it seems possible they might find buyers
for the iPad, too. The price is OK.

I guess the real need it is filling will be "I really want to buy something
right now, but I already own everything I need".

------
MaysonL
With Skype and a Bluetooth headset, this will be cheaper than an iPhone!

~~~
robg
This was my thought as well. Any one know about push?

~~~
frankus
Since the iPod Touch supports push (as long as it's on a data network), I
would be shocked if they left it out of the iPad API.

~~~
robg
Really? I use a Touch daily and Skype doesn't push. Of all applications, I
think they would if they could.

------
chaosmachine
This is going to do to netbooks what the iPod did to CD players.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Netbooks cost 50-60% less, so they're pretty safe.

~~~
Zarathu
Find me a CD player that costs $250.

~~~
icefox
[http://www.benzworld.org/forums/sale-trade-wanted-
items/1436...](http://www.benzworld.org/forums/sale-trade-wanted-
items/1436753-mercedes-benz-audio-10-dash-cd.html)

------
prawn
Am I the only one who was expecting a killer feature that they don't seem to
have? The calendar looks like it'd work well, and iBook would be decent at the
right price, but much of the rest is basically "like a big iPhone."

I was expecting them to dominate the textbook market with live-updates to
etextbooks at an affordable price, annotations, social annotations, digital
bookmarks, etc. If tertiary students are having to spring $100ish/book and
buying x books/year, then blowing $500 on something to cart around campus
might be an easier decision.

No real play at sketching or note taking either? Might not be as easy as it
should be (always gave up on handwriting recognition with an old Dell
handheld) but they could've included it I'm sure.

And after seeing a proof of concept of a multimedia version of Sports
Illustrated, I was positive that Apple would take a crack at magazines and
newspapers with an app-type store that handled subscriptions, editions,
upgrades, premium/sealed sections, easy sales and links direct from magazines,
etc.

The price is good and I actually could make use of this (replacing my iPhone
for basically browsing the net at home on the couch or in bed, playing
Freecell, etc) but I am very surprised that there's not more to it.

------
jeremyawon
lack of front facing/any camera mystifies me

~~~
eli
Well, you'd look ridiculous trying to point the thing at someone to take a
picture. And the truth is that hardly anyone really wants videochat.

~~~
lliiffee
In my experience, people want videochat to look at their grandchildren.

~~~
roc
The question is: are there a lot of them itching to spend several hundred
dollars to do that via a wireless picture-frame in their lap?

In my experience those people are reasonably well served by sitting down at a
PC with a webcam.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You can of course see your grandchildren via the iPad if they've got a laptop
or desktop camera, it's the person with the iPad that won't be seen.

------
cookiecaper
Last time I looked at an iPod touch, I said, "What is this? A computer for
ants?!?! It has to be at least ... three times that size."

------
khelloworld
Well. At least they didn't call this OS version 4.0.

Can't wait for WWDC '10 to see a new OS with a better interface (at least for
the iPad).

~~~
khelloworld
And, I think they'll add background apps in the new OS. I think the hardware
(on the iphone as well) is ready to handle the load.

~~~
gaborcselle
Some jailbroken firmwares out there already support backgrounding.

~~~
khelloworld
Yeah, but a good number of people don't know how to jailbreak their devices or
simply don't want to do it. So, I am talking from their perspective.

------
jpcx01
Was disappointed by lack of multitasking. Already ditched my iPhone for
Android, and the difference is huge.

Is this going to be another thing with Apple like the single mouse button?
Seems like they are really trying to stick to their guns. I mean, why would
anyone want to use more than one app at a time right?

------
philwelch
If this thing can store and play arbitrary video files (to the limit of
Quicktime's capabilities) and gets an app for Netflix streaming, I actually
think it'll be extremely useful for me in that I can finally separate my
entertainment machine from my work machine. It looks like it's only
MPEG-4/H.264 friendly, but that may be enough if that becomes the standard.
(Letting it somehow play DVD's--even with just a "DVD dock"--would be helpful
as well, but I have a laptop fully capable of converting DVD's into H.264
anyhow.)

My suspicion is that next year's iPad will be the one to push the concept over
the top for me. Though it's already compelling as an ebook reader and part
time laptop replacement, one more iteration will seal the deal.

------
kprobst
I can't help but wonder if this thing is related to Amazon's wild success with
the Kindle.

Jobs never saw a consumer market he didn't like. Certainly if I was given the
option to go with the Kindle or an iPad, my choice would be clear - I want the
device with more functionality. The Kindle DX is the same price as the iPad,
with a slightly smaller screen.

Kindle killer? Time will tell.

Edit: At the Kindle DX price point the iPad does not provide 3G access though.
And that's one of the biggest selling points for Amazon's device.

~~~
blehn
There are a few major differences, though. The Kindle battery lasts for
something like a week of use with the wireless connection ON (Apple claims 10
hrs for iPad). The other big difference is e-ink; the display works well in
bright sunlight, and is easier on the eyes than a backlit LCD at night.

The Kindle has proven to be far superior to smartphones and laptops for
reading large amounts of text. The iPad will be more versatile, but i'm not
sure that's as important, since laptops and iPhones are already pretty
versatile.

------
covercash
I'd really like to see limited floating licenses for all the apps I bought on
my iPhone, similar to the way DRM from the iTunes store works. You can
authorize 1 iPhone and 1 iPad per purchased application. Maybe use Mobile Me
to sync settings.

------
Anon84
I'm surprised there's no way to write on it, like an oversized Newton!

EDIT: Also, are there any new on support for arbitrary pdfs under iBooks? I
have a gazillion articles for which the iPad would be perfect.

~~~
wmf
<http://tenonedesign.com/sketch.php>

No handwriting recognition though.

------
tewks
This is going to change the whole computer market forever.

Why would anyone (edit: a user who buys a below $1k machine) be inclined to
purchase a netbook or even a 13" PC instead of this?

~~~
runevault
because we want an OS with extra functionality like background apps/etc?
Especially the netbooks w/3g capability you can get subsidized.

Does this add options to the market? Yes. Is it a game changer? Not even
close.

~~~
tewks
They are going to sell a lot of these. Game changer.

~~~
runevault
Maybe I'm crazy but gamechanger requires more than sales.

The iPhone was a game changer because it redifined the market and got more
people interested in smartphones, changing the entire cell phone industry.

~~~
tewks
Totally right. Sales aren't the only factor. It can matter for developers
targeting users, though again not the only factor.

In particular, as a developer, I'm excited about the opportunity to have solid
multitouch on a bigger screen.

The first example that comes to mind is the fact that numerous games and other
apps aren't possible on the iPhone/touch because the screen isn't big enough,
such as two-player games on the same screen.

------
hallmark
iPad + Bespin. Is anyone else interested in this potentially tasty combo-meal?

The App Store may not allow language interpreters, but as long as Bespin plays
well with Safari and JavaScript, Bespin is just another valid webapp. And with
a $30 unlimited 3G plan, I can code wherever I want (ok, wherever AT&T lets
me). And to be very generous, the lack of multitasking would reduce coding
distractions.

I'm extremely looking forward to trying this out!

~~~
ampdat
Count me in. I can't understand everyone complaining about the lack of open
programming/standards/access on the iPad. It appears to be the ultimate html5
client. Adding a Bespin editor would make it a one click cloud coding dream
(well, with an external keyboard so we can have a control key...)

------
olliesaunders
On Apple and Flash: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1075440>

------
bdmac97
No GPS???

~~~
necubi
According to the specs page (<http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/>) there is
A-GPS, but only on the 3G model.

------
gcheong
I can see why the makers of the Modbook weren't exactly shaking in their
boots, totally different target market for this thing.

------
scorpion032
Its basically like a laptop, except that apple controls _everything_ that gets
into it.

------
noodle
i kind of think this summarizes my feelings about the ipad:

[http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/frantic_steve_jo...](http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/frantic_steve_jobs_stays_up)

------
sdurkin
Swing and a miss.

------
teilo
When will the LCARS interface be out for it?

