
The Real iPad Review - glower
http://www.thekmiecs.com/misc/real-ipad-review/
======
jcromartie
This is ridiculous.

Let's just deconstruct it:

"Do you like a linear approach for doing things? If so, the iPad is perfect
for you."

I can already feel the condescension.

"Everything about the iPad interface is linear. Every desired final action is
accomplished through a series of taps."

As opposed to what, chords? Those are the only non-linear interface I know
of... otherwise most inputs are processed sequentially in time.

"Want to read a book? Cool. Tap the home button. Tap the iBook app. Tap the
library view. Tap the book you want to read."

As opposed to...? What? Seriously. Someone help me out here. Someone name a
better way to launch a book in a reader. Would "tapping" each key to spell the
command to launch your uber-l33t CLI reader and the path to the book be
better? Would "tapping" a combination of keys to bring up your GUI app
launcher and then "tapping" the first few chars of the book and "tapping"
enter be demonstrably better?

"Hopefully, you’re getting the point. Some will call this brilliant. I call it
rudimentary and lacking, especially when you consider that you’ll be doing a
lot of tapping since there is STILL no multi-tasking functionality. Yes, just
like the iPhone, you can’t switch between apps."

You can switch between apps... Any app worth its salt saves and resumes its
state as quickly as possible.

"If you’re watching a movie and want to tweet a comment about it, you’ll need
to exit the movie app, switch to the twitter app, tweet away, close the
twitter app, re-launch the movie app, tap to resume the movie…etc."

Again, the alternative is...? Pausing the move, switching to the Twitter app,
tweeting, and then switching to the movie app? What? You think you can tweet
without pausing? Well I hope you stay off the road, because I bet you think
you have better multi-tasking skills than the average luser and can text and
drive just fine thank you very much, don't you?

~~~
viraptor
I think that by linear he means there's only one way to get there - that exact
sequence. You cannot get there via a custom bookmark, or from another
application that somehow links to the book, or by having many instances open
with different books and by app switching.

That said - I don't know if that's true, but that's how I understood him. This
way it kind of makes sense to complain about linear approach. Can anyone
confirm?

~~~
jcromartie
Even if it's what he was saying, the OS supports custom URL schemas for just
this purpose. I used custom URLs to jump to records in our app from other
places in the system. Granted, it's not a quick keystroke or an on-screen
quick-launch bar, but it works.

~~~
adamkmiec
And it requires you to build it into the app.

------
tptacek
I took a moment to break down all the individual criticisms of the iPad in the
article:

1\. The OS's interface is "linear".

2\. There's no multitasking

3\. There's no accessible filesystem.

4\. There's no camera.

5\. The screen gets smudgey.

6\. It doesn't come with a screen cleaner.

7\. The speakers aren't loud enough.

8\. It's "not portable".

9\. It's hard to read in direct sunlight.

10\. You can't get it wet.

11\. It has too many book suppliers and no unified book reading interface.

12\. It costs $30 to turn it into a picture frame.

13\. It has no USB port.

14\. You can't replace the battery.

15\. There's "no ability to create content".

16\. It costs $100 too much.

I found this to be a distinctively superficial and unhelpful review, but it
was at least mercifully free of moral judgements.

Since (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (10), (12), (13), (14), and (16) were clearly
evident before he bought the device, and (8) and (15) are... dubious... at
best, I find it especially amusing that he opted to pay for it.

~~~
oostevo
I have an Apple store right next to my house, so I stopped by today to play
with an iPad.

He's right about the smudgey screen -- though supposedly both the iPad and
iPhone have oleophobic screens, the iPad was noticeably worse than the iPhone.

Granted, several thousand fingers running over it for 16 hours a day probably
wasn't the intended use case.

~~~
tptacek
It's true that you'd only know about (5) if you'd ever owned, used, or read
much about an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Every iPhone I've ever seen has been
smudgey.

------
potatolicious
To save you all some time, the author hasn't really raised anything a
bajillion other people haven't raised.

Well, he does bring up something most others haven't: he insinuates that iPad
users have the computing needs of a 3 year-old.

~~~
Qz
No no no -- he said that 3 year-olds have the computing needs of an iPad. It's
an important distinction.

~~~
adamkmiec
Exactly. You said it better than I did.

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faramarz
No way! Another review. Sweet baby Jesus!

