Boston Herald Bashes iPad

[Lotus Esprit]

Link: Hopefully Newer Versions of the iPad will be Much Better

[scottjl]

"They say not to judge a book by its cover. But can you judge an e-book reader by how cool it looks?"

Well I'd say he's got a bias (or ignorance) right there as the iPad isn't sold as an e-book reader.

Pretty much goes down from there. He complains no DVD drive!?!? What would you want that for in this type of device?

Well, I'm "enjoying the cool".

[Lotus Esprit]

I think that for some reason people are under the impression that it is a full notebook replacement when it isn't.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by scottjl

Well I'd say he's got a bias (or ignorance) right there as the iPad isn't sold as an e-book reader.

You need to tell that to the Apple rep I was talking to the other day who was trying to sell it to me as an ebook reader.

But yeah the complaint about a lack of DVD drive is pretty silly. (Complaining about the lack of USB isn't, though...)

[leebase]

The iPad is an ereader and I see no problems selling it as one. It's NOT a laptop or a netbook and this article missed the whole point of what an iPad is.

The iPad doesn't run Mac OSX apps....well, a Macbook doesn't run iPhone OS apps either. It's not a Macbook.

Netbooks are $300ish--but they don't have dvd's either.

He complained about it not having an ethernet port? What a hoot.

No mention of iPad apps, iPad games. I guess if you play around for 30min in a store....you might well write the same uninforming 'review' that this guy wrote.

Look, the iPad isn't a device everybody is going to want. Just as I never wanted a netbook. The iPad is exactly what _I_ expected it to be. I enjoy mine immensely when I can get it away from my kids.

Lee

[scottjl]

well that's the first i've heard of any apple employee pushing it as an e-book reader. at least as a dedicated unit. everything else mentions that among other things you can read books on it.

for as much as i'd like to see a USB port on it (for a connection to various devices) it's unlikely we ever will. why? ok. so apple adds in a USB port, which one? a? b? mini? micro? is it a host or a device? for the sake of simplicity say it's a host with a type a, which would allow you to plug in printers, cameras, webcams, scanners, game controllers, keyboards, microphones, headsets, mp3 players, cd/dvd drives, jump drives, etc.

now what?

every one of those devices requires a driver written for it, and an API into the OS. who's going to write the drivers? who's going to maintain them? how are we going to load and manage them? it's not as simple as "add a socket for USB" and magically everything will work. there's a lot of back-end programming that will need to go on. who's going to do that? and more important to companies, who's going to pay for it?

next we'll have issues with drivers. distribution, installation, updating, removal of old drivers. need an OS interface to manage them (in settings i'm sure). add in a lot of complexity vs. the "just works" that the iphone/ipad now enjoys. i'm sure we'll see many devices that will never have drivers written for the iphone OS, just as there are many without Mac drivers (just look at how many $5 webcams are available in the PC world that don't work on the Mac). what about a badly written driver, it could crash the whole OS. ugh. there goes the iDevice's OS with frequent crashing. in my 3 years with an iphone i have never had the OS crash or lock up on me once. only applications bombing out or the springboard relaunching.

what about when apple updates the iDevice OS as they have done several times in the past few years. there have been some significant changes each time. you might need a new device driver for each version, or you might not.

i could keep going on, but i think the major points are made. i wouldn't be holding out for an iPad with usb ports any time soon, there just isn't enough benefit to apple (steve jobs) to justify to them (him) to put one in. the iPad can consume media content just fine over the existing port connector or wirelessly. adding a USB port would only cause headaches for apple and open up the iDevice platform for 3rd parties, which Apple doesn't care much about.

if you're looking for a tablet-style device with usb so you can connect anything to it definitely go with a device that is running an OS like windows.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Lotus Esprit

I think that for some reason people are under the impression that it is a full notebook replacement when it isn't.

Agreed. That's a big misconception people have, and it leads many to bash it with comments like "Why pay $500+ for that when I could get a new laptop?"

It's a media consumption tablet, meant to supplement laptops/PCs as the form factor on those sucks for reading, surfing the net in bed, watching streaming video in bed etc.

As for the e-reader--it's a media consumption device and books are one of the media it can display, and display well. But it's not an "e-reader" as that term is tied to dedicated reader devices like the Kindle in the public lingo. Just as the iPhone, blackberries, PDAs and computers (and anything else that can display ebooks) aren't called "e-readers" neither should media consumption tablets be called e-readers IMO.

[richman]

Yeah, the dvd drive being added to IPAD made me laugh too, since netbooks don't have them, I've been seeing DVD's as old fashioned myself. Hard drives are so big now, 4.5 gig dvd seems like CD's of old.

I would like to see usb on this thing, and I do understand the good points that scottjl was pointing out, but in all honesty, I'm sure apps would be made for some hard drives/camcorders/printers would work with it , and also keyboards/mice/ the list goes on and on. Just like IPAD has bluetooth and apps have been made on itouch to use different bluetooth devices. Just the standard USB port like on netbooks/laptops/PC's.
And if NOT a USB port , come on, having a SD slot in the device with such limited memory 16,32,64 gigs is MINATORY (pun) . You gotta have it, ...camcorders have it, my 505 sony has it, my laptop/netbooks have it, my mp3's have it. Come on APPLE, this is a BIG DEVICE and not a itouch/iphone and we will be using it for media. If someone wants to let me see his photos/files/mp3's etc. I have no simple way to see that stuff on the IPAD! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB!
The usb port on IPAD would at least offer us OPTIONS as to camcorders/hard drives/mice/keyboards/ you name it, and 3rd party vendors could make drivers that could work for device.
I maybe can understand with tiny device not have usb/ SD slot, but this device is NOT SMALL.
HOPEFULLY the next version IPAD will have both USB and SD slot! This first generation model SHOULD have had a SD slot in it! No excuses and I don't care what anybody else feels about it, for ME, it has made me cross it off my list. NO EXPANSION at ALL! NONE.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by scottjl

well that's the first i've heard of any apple employee pushing it as an e-book reader. at least as a dedicated unit. everything else mentions that among other things you can read books on it.

You have a very strange definition of "pushing something as an ebook reader".If they advertise it that it reads ebooks and does other things, that's pushing it as an ebook reader. The apple guy I spoke to was probably pushing it as an ebook reader, since that's what I was interested in. No doubt he'd have pushed some other feature if I had been interested in the other features.

This is not like the situation with not calling a smartphone of whatever brand an "ereader". They are pushing e-book reading as something the iPad is ideal for. They don't do that with the iPhone, even if you can read books on it.

for as much as i'd like to see a USB port on it (for a connection to various devices) it's unlikely we ever will. why? ok. so apple adds in a USB port, which one? a? b? mini? micro? is it a host or a device? for the sake of simplicity say it's a host with a type a, which would allow you to plug in printers, cameras, webcams, scanners, game controllers, keyboards, microphones, headsets, mp3 players, cd/dvd drives, jump drives, etc.

I'd be happy if it only supported USB jump drives. An SD card reader would be a suitable replacement. We might not ever see it; not because it would be so very hard to program, but only because Apple doesn't want you to be able to get stuff onto the iPad without going through their hoops.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by frabjous

I'd be happy if it only supported USB jump drives. An SD card reader would be a suitable replacement. We might not ever see it; not because it would be so very hard to program, but only because Apple doesn't want you to be able to get stuff onto the iPad without going through their hoops.

The even bigger reason is it would cut into sales of higher memory capacity models, where they really make a lot of money by overcharging for memory.

Apple gets $100 more for a 32GB iPad than a 16, and then $100 more (despite being twice the memory increase) for the 64GB over the 32.

Add an SD card slot especially, or USB, then you'll see more people sticking with the 16GB model and just keeping their videos, music etc. on SD cards etc.

[richman]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

The even bigger reason is it would cut into sales of higher memory capacity models, where they really make a lot of money by overcharging for memory.

Apple gets $100 more for a 32GB iPad than a 16, and then $100 more (despite being twice the memory increase) for the 64GB over the 32.

Add an SD card slot especially, or USB, then you'll see more people sticking with the 16GB model and just keeping their videos, music etc. on SD cards etc.

Exactly! I couldn't have said it better! Who here can disagree with his assessment!

p.s. IF the masses of people understood what you wrote, they would realize they are being SCREWED , big time. Forced to pay 200 dollars more for 64 gig's and apple did it on purpose so you HAD to buy the bigger model if you had movies/mp3's/etc. You got screwed IPAD owners. Do you get it? With SD slot you can put your camcorder movies into this device, your camera photos into this, your movies/ and you would BE FREE. The base memory could be for APPS and favorite ebooks/mp3's.

[dmaul1114]

To be fair, they're hardly alone on that front. Very few MP3 players from major companies, for example, have SD card slots. So it's not just an iPad issue. I think some other major media consumption tablets will probably lack user expandable memory as well.

[richman]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

To be fair, they're hardly alone on that front. Very few MP3 players from major companies, for example, have SD card slots. So it's not just an iPad issue. I think some other major media consumption tablets will probably lack user expandable memory as well.

We may disagree on this point, my sansa mp3 players have SD slot, my 2 notebooks have SD slot, my netbook has SD slot, my canon camera has SD slot, my canon camcorder has SD slot, the list goes on and on. My APPLE itouch doesn't or my MS ZUNE doesn't. Apple and MS!
I forgot my WII has SD slot too! My 360 has SD slot, my DS lite has SD slot, my psp has a dual memory slot. They all have ways to ADD media to device. Why would you IPAD fans stand for NOT HAVING some way to ADD media to a MEDIA DEVICE...? Why?

[scottjl]

well. what i meant was if you walked up to a sales clerk in an electronics store and said "i want an e-book reader" and they pushed you at an ipad vs. a sony or kindle or nook. there is a big difference between and e-book reader, and a device that will display e-books. my laptop (and desktop for that matter) will display electronic books, but i wouldn't call either of those an e-book reader either.

as for a usb port for jump drives, each drive can require its own drivers, so we're back to the whole driver issue. then there's the matter of file-system support. FAT? FAT32? HFS? HFS+? NTFS? the iPad uses HFS for it's native filesystem, so that is built in, but cameras and the like use FAT or FAT32. filesystem drivers for those would need to be developed. not too hard, but still work. then you'd need a "finder" type application. they do exist for jailbroken devices, so they have been developed. but suddenly your grandmother has to figure out how to navigate a file system and remember what directory she put those pictures in. applications need APIs to access the whole filesystem. you've also introduced a vector for things like buffer-overuns for people looking to do naughty things with your iDevice. again, all of this takes away from the whole "it just works" operation Apple is trying to keep.

i'm very curious how the camera kit is going to work. i plan on picking one up (avid photographer here) whenever they become available. but have you noticed the photos application has no organization ability at all. you can't create new folders and move pictures around between them, something i totally wish it did (on the iPhone, which actually has a camera, as well as on the iPad). i can take several hundred photos in a day very easily, is it just going to keep appending them to the one camera roll? that "stack" of photos is going to be miles high, and useless to navigate. hopefully we'll see an updated photo application when that kit goes live.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by richman

We may disagree on this point, my sansa mp3 players have SD slot, my 2 notebooks have SD slot, my netbook has SD slot, my canon camera has SD slot, my canon camcorder has SD slot, the list goes on and on. My APPLE itouch doesn't or my MS ZUNE doesn't. Apple and MS!

I forgot my WII has SD slot too! My 360 has SD slot, my DS lite has SD slot, my psp has a dual memory slot. They all have ways to ADD media to device. Why would you IPAD fans stand for NOT HAVING some way to ADD media to a MEDIA DEVICE...? Why?

My Creative MP3 players have no SD slot either.

Personally, I don't mind it too terribly much as I don't use SD cards for anything anyway (well have one in my Kindle 1--not sure why as the system media isn't near full).

I'd rather just buy a device that has enough storage for me than have to hassle with SD cards etc. Computers aside as I do use jump drives and portable hard drives to back things up, work at home and the office etc.

My only problem with the iPad memory wise is not having an easy way to get content on it, organize files in folders etc.

I would like USB ports on a tablet just to make it easy to get my documents over--but without drag and drop (or a file management system) the iPad already fails on that regard. But an SD card I don't care so much about as I'm not a user of those.