
Zawinski: iPad just-slightly insufficiently futurey - fogus
http://jwz.livejournal.com/1284712.html
======
statictype
_It's an instant-on appliance with a real web browser and real mail reader on
a real screen._

I guess that's the selling point right there. It's not a _computer_ that
requires booting and starting up system services and logging in. It's an
appliance you can immediately turn on and start using.

~~~
_delirium
That particular point doesn't seem like a huge win to me, as someone who never
shuts down his laptop. I just open the lid and it's on, then close the lid and
it's "off". The form factor/weight seems like the bigger win, at least for me.
Although if you're going to carry around a Bluetooth keyboard to use it, like
jwz apparently does, that seems like it eats away at the advantages there a
bit?

~~~
joezydeco
Just curious: when you close the lid on your laptop, are you
hibernating/sleeping, or is the CPU always running?

When I do the closelid/openlid thing on my Debian laptop, it takes a good
10-20 seconds for my wifi to reacquire...and that's after I log in. Then I
need to tickle Chrome or my mail client to sync up. I'd say maybe 30 seconds
before I can see new email or load a web page.

In playing with the iPad, I've found it just comes up right away and I can see
mail in 10 seconds. I can also scoop the iPad off the counter with a drink and
some other items and plop on the couch. Not as easy to do with my laptop.

~~~
_delirium
It hibernates/sleeps, and does so basically instantly as far as I can tell.
It's an OSX laptop. Due to driver issues, I believe Debian's hibernation isn't
quite as smooth, though I've heard it's getting better (I only run Debian on
my desktop, so have no first-hand knowledge).

------
yanowitz
Dammit. I keep resisting the lure of the iPad, but when jwz weighs in...

Must. Wait. For. Next. Version.

You know, the smaller one with the front facing camera. So my kids can do
FaceTime with their grandparents.

Or the one with a (dare I hope) retina display. I guess that's probably a few
versions out.

~~~
cletus
The lack of a front facing camera is a common complaint but honestly (owning
an iPad that I love and use all the time) I don't think the use case is as cut
and dried as that.

Video calls are most often made with a desktop computer or laptop. Laptops
have a camera at the top of the screen. Most Webcams are attached to the top
of monitors. So you are typically eye level with a desktop webcam or just
above with a laptop. That's a fairly natural position.

With an iPad it is most often put on a table, your lap, held in your arm on an
armrest or your lap or propped up on your lap or chest when lying down.

All of these cases would have a highly unflattering view if using video.
"Looking up someone's nostrils" is how I'd describe it. I could see it working
in the keyboard dock, if you have that (which I don't) but that mimics a
laptop setup.

I'm not saying they won't add a front facing camera but just think about the
practicalities of it.

As for Gen 2, I've gotten so much use out of mine that I won't think twice
about selling it to buy the new one. I simply use it that much that it's a
complete no brainer. Few devices I own, other than my PC, get that much use.

I'd like to see more memory. Not because I need it but because more
applications will be possible with it. I'd also like to see digital out. There
is a VGA out connector but it's analog and has idiotic restrictions on it like
you can't play iTunes video on it, I guess as an appeasement to the idiots at
the MPAA.

But front facing camera? For me it's pretty low priority.

As far as form factor goes, there might be a smaller one. Rumours of a 7" iPad
persist. I'm frankly unconvinced. Even if there was one I wouldn't buy one. A
10" screen for a portable device is truly wonderful. I'm not going backwards,
I don't care how much lighter it might be.

And as far as Android/WebOS/Windows tablets go, my own view is that the
competition is AT LEAST two years behind. Sure in the next 6 months you're
going to see any number of crappy tablets coming out but it will be at least
1-2 years before they'll have the polish, battery life and especially the
ecosystem of the iPad.

~~~
saurik
I'd love to know what you actually do with yours. Every single use case I
could come up with for the iPad was totally destroyed by the iPhone 4, which
has 80% the resolution but fits in my pocket. If a new iPad came out with a
reasonable screen I could totally see it being an awesome device, but at
1024x768 people really just need to learn to hold their iPhone 4 closer to
their face.

~~~
cletus
Email, Web browsing, reading technical books, games, photo storage, photo
editing, slideshows, watching TV, Twitter, Facebook (even though theres no
native iPad app annoyingly), reading (particular technical books where the
extra screen real estate really shines), reading my RSS feeds, etc.

I have n iPhone 4 too and will certainly pull that out of my pocket and use it
but at home I just prefer the larger screen.

~~~
qwzybug
Composing presentations, preparing invoices, sketching, Monkey Island,
writing.

The retina display makes a huge difference for reading, so I tend to use the
iPhone for feeds and things, but for anything creative the iPad is the clear
winner.

~~~
josefresco
The bigger screen also makes it a great trip/car browsing device. It's sinmply
not comfortable to do extensive browsing on a phone. The iPad's niche is the
middle-ground between a phone and latptop (between walking mobile and mobile
office)

------
famousactress
I'd add.. I was surprised how quickly touch typing came. I'm not nearly as
fast as I am on a normal keyboard, but still much faster than my thumbs on an
iPhone. Certainly fast enough to write chunky emails or blog posts.. if
anything, the minor slowdown is an encouragement to write more vigorously.

~~~
thought_alarm
The keyboard is fine.

The problem is the complete lack of copyediting shortcuts. There are no keys
for moving the cursor, or selecting next. There isn't even a forward-delete
key.

When I write long text and long emails I will invariably need to go back and
copyedit my work, and iOS gives me very little to make that job easier.
(Android is even worse.)

It bugs me so much I actually drew up a prototype iPad keyboard [1].

3 years in with iOS and I'm still far more comfortable and productive writing
long text on my Blackberry than on an iPhone or iPad.

[1] <http://a.imageshack.us/img16/425/ipadarrowkeys.png>

------
rbanffy
> but I couldn't possibly imagine that Apple would handicap third-party
> applications to give their own product line a first-mover advantage

Sadly, I could.

------
cpg
Damn. Jamie still around?! :)

OT, but I pictured him in a deserted island with big LCD monitors in the walls
of the hut running kool screensvers!

OK, back on topic - I find the iPad a bit tiring to be held reading a book. My
hands need rest from typing when I am not at my desk!

It's eady to drop and also calls home all the time, which I do not enjoy. It
feels like every app is watching you.

Overall, it's a good device though. I hope for others that are much more open,
soon!

------
ergo98
Everyone always leads in with the "I thought it was useless" bit.

Did they really? Haven't they used a digital picture frame and though "Gosh,
wouldn't it be cool if this could show the weather...and had a web
browser...and let me play movies from my server..."

I find it difficult to believe that so many intelligent people (of which jwz
is definitely one) purportedly couldn't see the obvious appeal.

I've been using small devices as PMPs for a while (whether smartphone or touch
or zune) and the desire for something larger is, again, obvious.

Though I'll hold my breath for the Galasy S Tab.

~~~
gamble
It is a $500+ device. At that point most people are looking for some guarantee
that it's going to be useful.

The iPad is an unusual product, because doesn't address an obvious need.
Laptops were just portable desktops. mp3 players were digital Walkmans.
Smartphones are a combination of PDA, mp3 player, and phones. Most new classes
of electronics are just an extension of an existing product in an obvious but
technically-challenging direction. The iPad is more like the original PC -
superficially similar to its predecessors, but used quite differently.

People use their iPads in their own way. For me, the killer app was as an
e-reader. I could easily read books and pdfs on my laptop, but the tablet
form-factor is far more pleasant for reading. Reading on a laptop is a chore,
whereas reading on the iPad feels quite natural.

What trips people up about the iPad is that it _isn't_ about the
functionality. My MBP is more capable in almost every way. It's value lies in
the fact that it does certain things extremely well that no other electronic
device has been good at until now.

~~~
ido

        The iPad is more like the original PC - 
        superficially similar to its predecessors, 
        but used quite differently.
    

A bit OT, but how was using the original PC categorically different than using
an apple2/atari 800/trs-80/etc?

~~~
arethuza
I think IBM branding had a lot to do with it - as it was made by IBM it was a
serious business tool whereas other devices were merely "toys".

Of course this had nothing to do with the capabilities of the technologies but
everything to do with positioning.

~~~
glhaynes
I expect the original poster doesn't mean the IBM PC specifically, but
personal computers in general.

------
d0m
This matrix style hurts my eyes.

~~~
Herring
<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

~~~
d0m
I already used it. But it just make no sens to me. It's like if I create a
blog with light yellow written over light green where nobody can read a thing
and then tell them to use another application to be able to read it.

But to be fair, 6 years ago, my terminals were like that. So I guess this
hacker/matrix mode goes away with time.

~~~
jacobolus
One nice thing about the web (as opposed to say a book or magazine) is, if you
own your blog, you can make its defaults look like whatever you want, and your
readers can override that to make it look like whatever they want.

------
ohyes
""Shiny black slab" was an attractive design choice, but it may not have been
the best choice if you want the device to be able to function in the presence
of sunlight. Sigh. This is a shame, because the screen is surprisingly
readable when it's not suffering from i-sunstroke,""

OK, from an engineering standpoint, this probably isn't the best. (It seems
that apple sometimes ignores the fact that computers get hot...)

But I think we could turn this into a marketing selling point; Vampires are
hot right now, vampires hate the sun.

The iPad, the latest in Vampiric computing.

Then you can sell it with sexy twilight/trueblood vampires. (In black mock
turtlenecks/sweaters, of course).

It'll be awesome.

------
jakevoytko
JWZ is wrong to count overheating against the iPad's futurey image. If
cutting-edge consumer laptops are any indication, everything will overheat in
the future. Cars will need a 4 minute iBreak on the way to work. Your lamp
will throw off any color you want, but only for an hour at a time. And I have
bad news about the coffee maker.

~~~
jacquesm
> our lamp will throw off any color you want, but only for an hour at a time.

Unless you want infra-red, then it can do it all day long, right?

