Boston Herald Bashes iPad

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by scottjl

i hate to tell you. you've been able to drag and drop into itunes since it was SoundJam. and any supported media type, not just music files. epubs. videos.

No need to hate to tell me. I've not been using it long as I never had a need since I didn't have an iPod until recently and don't buy MP3s as I prefer to buy cds and rip them.

So I appreciate the info! I don't have much patience etc. for tech stuff despite using a lot of it!

as i said. keep multiple playlists for each device of mine. one for music. one for audio books. one for video content.

I just do music (and podcasts) and I'm an album listener so I don't have to deal with playlists myself. So I just drag over albums I want on the Nano.

[GlenBarrington]

OK I know you are using it as an eReader, but what else is it good at? What things is it not so good at?

Up til now, I've heard a lot of blue sky talk concerning this device. It's time for the early adopters to give us a user's review. We need to know the good spots and the not so good.

What were you hoping for and how has it met or failed in your expectations? What has surprised you? What have been some unexpected difficulties?

[pshrynk]

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.

That was my first impression in reading the article. It's like all the bashing that went on when the Kindle first came out, "It can't surf the web!" etc.

It's a multifunction device with a lot of apps and serves the purpose it sets out to fulfill. But it was not designed to be a netbook competitor!

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by 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.

There's an app for that.

Seriously, though, I think I've seen a few apps for photo organization for my Touch whilst browsing the App Store. But it's not a native talent and would be nice if Apple were to improve that feature in a future firmware upgrade.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

OK I know you are using it as an eReader, but what else is it good at? What things is it not so good at?

-Great web browser. If you're not on forums etc. anyway where you need a keyboard. I love browsing the web on the couch with my girlfriend's ipad. With the pinch zooming etc. I like it better than a laptop--easier to read smaller fonts on blogs etc. Lack of flash is a bit of a downer though.

--Still e-reading I guess--but all the news apps are great. NY Times, AP, USA Today, NPR etc.

--Also still e-reading I guess--the comic apps work great and look amazing.

-Streaming Video--ABC and Netflix player are great. Nice for watching a TV show in bed, vs. lugging the heavy and hot running laptop to bed.

-Random Apps--Epicurious--great free cookbook, weather apps, games etc. Just lots of stuff to play around with.


That said, do I think it (or any tablet) are for everyone, definitely not. It's a neat device to supplement a laptop, but certainly not something that many people will need or want--especially if they don't want to use the e-reader functions (only like e-ink etc.) and if they're.

[pshrynk]

Photos currently have to be synched using a file on the host computer which is the designated synch site. It only synchs photos in the main folder, not anything in subfolders. I have a "To Touch" and a "To Nano" folder in my Pictures folder that I use to get them there. On my Touch, I then move them to Photo Safe and delte them from the host folder and they are erased with the next synch. The process is a bit cumbersome, but not un-doable. I will try the PhotoSafe on my iPad when I get my grubby little hands on it.