Very disappointed with the way the tech is developing.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Crowl

... reason why we haven't seen more large e-ink devices because unless you did have a full a4 reader then the greater flexibility of an lcd with regards scrolling, zooming etc. would tend to outweigh the downsides.

Absolutely agree here. Lots of discussion in my household over whether to buy a Kindle DXG, with the device in the Amazon cart and us poised over the buy button.

But we were agreed in the end that 9.7" still isn't big enough for our key purpose, which is to read the many documents we receive (and buy) that are formatted for A4 or Letter print, without zooming and scrolling. This followed a few days trying out an iPad, and comparing with my eInk readers held in landscape, etc.

For eInk then, we're going to wait until there is a true A4 device. For now, the speed of zooming and scrolling on a tablet, plus the additional functionality, means that we're set on buying a good 10" Android tablet when one gets released. It's looking as though there should be a reasonable selection of these by next spring, and we can wait.

(The iPad was great fun, but the lack of USB or SD card file input was a deal-breaker for both of us, along with the whole iTunes ecosystem thing, which neither of us want.)

Graham

[harryE123]

other than shear prejudice I wonder why no one would want to be part of the premier ecosystem of apps, media, and syncing in itunes...

You can get wifi sd card slots which render the whole need for an integrated slots close to irrelevant. In addition the camera connection kit, a miniscule plug in the ipads port permits both sd and usb camera tranfers. Via jailbreak this can double up as storage too for both sd cards and even hard disks.

What would you need to do with usb on the ipad? Connect a wired keyboard? What peripheral that is so crucial cant's connect via bluetooth or wifi. Some Palaeolithic conceptions of tec are really stupefying?

[Graham]

Originally Posted by harryE123

other than shear prejudice I wonder why no one would want to be part of the premier ecosystem of apps, media, and syncing in itunes...

Because I've tried iTunes and didn't think it was as well written as other applications available under Windows. I'm very happy with my existing solutions for media consumption and organisation, and don't need to add another product just to sync my media with my tablet.

(And yes, my existing, open source solution does allow me to access my music and video wirelessly from any device in the house, including from my Zen Xi-Fi mp3 player. And no, I didn't have to do anything complicated to achieve this; the media server came pre-installed on the NAS drive I bought and worked straight out of the box.)

Originally Posted by harryE123

You can get wifi sd card slots which render the whole need for an integrated slots close to irrelevant. In addition the camera connection kit, a miniscule plug in the ipads port permits both sd and usb camera tranfers. Via jailbreak this can double up as storage too for both sd cards and even hard disks.

Um, so your solution to "my device doesn't have an SD card slot" is to buy external readers or connection kits and use those to transfer the files to the tablet. How is that different from my wanting to have the SD card slot already present in the device?

Originally Posted by harryE123

What would you need to do with usb on the ipad? Connect a wired keyboard? What peripheral that is so crucial cant's connect via bluetooth or wifi.

Because people regularly hand me a USB key and say "Here, the files are on that."

Because I often have to drop files onto a USB key to give to someone else. Not every file is small enough to email, and you don't always have access to a shared folder on an available WiFi network. You may not need to handle 90MB installation files, or 100 MB archives of photos but I do.

Originally Posted by harryE123

Some Palaeolithic conceptions of tec are really stupefying?

I apologise that since my requirements differ from yours, you feel the need to suggest, some might say rather rudely, that my thought processes are from the stone age.

Graham

[harryE123]

Your thought processes are just fine, in no way did I mean to be rude. I was talking about Palaeolithic conceptions in people who use the tec. If someone can't email a large file or upload it on their personal cloud but have to give you usbs of course it's not your fault, but neither is the ipads, apple's or ipad user's fault that they have started moving along with the times. More people would even give you a cd instead of usb flash drive, much more, so what? Do tablets have to cater for cd drives too? This is preposterous.

Essentially what I am saying is that apple has always being the first ones to ditch old tech and jump on new, and better ones, they did this by ditching the floppies, they did this by implementing firewire first, they did this by implementing usb first (courtesy of intel of course). Now they very appropriately did away with the usb slot on slim tablets, it doesn't even fit properly. But to complain that this is unthinkable when there are so many workarounds.... Even if you can't get people to email you files, you can still (easily) jailbreak the ipad and have a usb slot with the miniscule camera kit you pop in, or you could use any of the wifi+usb+sd card readers on the side and transfer everything to the ipad that way.

(btw, put an itunes library on a nas and access it from everywhere, what's the big deal - and now with airplay stream any content from within an idevice via apple tv to any stereo/tv system.)

All I am saying is that just because a device is bolder in taking steps forward with tec doesn't make it a bad choice, all the more so when there are so many options open for you like the ones I described.

If the extra few gb on an sd card slot are also that important to you, fine by me, but the ipad is offered with ample storage, so I can understand an sd card slot for a 4gb flash slate but for a 32gb or a 64gd I can't see what that would give you. Sure, I d want and sd card slot for a few more gb's, but gbs are not enough, they are never enough, an sd card slot wouldn't save you. But integration with a qood cloud server would, or your nas server, and that is easy, open and free with the ipad. So it's your choice, complain about the lack of a few extra gbs in an sd card slot or go along with the times and get a few tens of gbs, or even hundreds via a home or cloud server?

@Crowl
Very good points but I did mention slates/tablets delivering a blow to large screen eink readers. I think it's a combination of both factors. Amazon are certainly subsidising their products with book sales, esp. the large screen dx. And unsurprisingly not even sony can compete in that price, they've priced a much, much smaller screen device the daily edition at about the same money as the dx, that shows they can't compete in price.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by harryE123

Your thought processes are just fine, in no way did I mean to be rude. I was talking about Palaeolithic conceptions in people who use the tec. If someone can't email a large file or upload it on their personal cloud but have to give you usbs of course it's not your fault, but neither is the ipads, apple's or ipad user's fault that they have started moving along with the times. More people would even give you a cd instead of usb flash drive, much more, so what? Do tablets have to cater for cd drives too? This is preposterous.

Essentially what I am saying is that apple has always being the first ones to ditch old tech and jump on new, and better ones, they did this by ditching the floppies, they did this by implementing firewire first, they did this by implementing usb first (courtesy of intel of course). Now they very appropriately did away with the usb slot on slim tablets, it doesn't even fit properly. But to complain that this is unthinkable when there are so many workarounds.... Even if you can't get people to email you files, you can still (easily) jailbreak the ipad and have a usb slot with the miniscule camera kit you pop in, or you could use any of the wifi+usb+sd card readers on the side and transfer everything to the ipad that way.

(btw, put an itunes library on a nas and access it from everywhere, what's the big deal - and now with airplay stream any content from within an idevice via apple tv to any stereo/tv system.)

All I am saying is that just because a device is bolder in taking steps forward with tec doesn't make it a bad choice, all the more so when there are so many options open for you like the ones I described.

If the extra few gb on an sd card slot are also that important to you, fine by me, but the ipad is offered with ample storage, so I can understand an sd card slot for a 4gb flash slate but for a 32gb or a 64gd I can't see what that would give you. Sure, I d want and sd card slot for a few more gb's, but gbs are not enough, they are never enough, an sd card slot wouldn't save you. But integration with a qood cloud server would, or your nas server, and that is easy, open and free with the ipad. So it's your choice, complain about the lack of a few extra gbs in an sd card slot or go along with the times and get a few tens of gbs, or even hundreds via a home or cloud server?

@Crowl
Very good points but I did mention slates/tablets delivering a blow to large screen eink readers. I think it's a combination of both factors. Amazon are certainly subsidising their products with book sales, esp. the large screen dx. And unsurprisingly not even sony can compete in that price, they've priced a much, much smaller screen device the daily edition at about the same money as the dx, that shows they can't compete in price.

I don't want to be too judgmental, but it seems that you're being a bit two-faced, defending legitimate drawbacks of the iPad in a thread where you are apparently also berating defenders of e-ink devices.

[J. Strnad]

I was fanatically interested in ebooks a few years ago but my interest waned when it became apparent that publishers weren't interested and that we were heading into a no-man's-land of competing formats. Amazon's Kindle initially excited me, but my enthusiasm lasted only a microsecond because I saw the cost: $399.

Years ago I wrote that what most people wanted was a $99 reader that reads MS-reader files. Now I've changed my mind: What most people want is a $99 reader that reads epub files.

The industry keeps chasing after high-dollar devices with their high profit margins, seeking to satisfy its need for profits rather than the consumers' need for an affordable, easy-to-use, compatible device.

I would really like to see the industry come up with a standard that results in a well-formatted ebook. Why is that so hard? And let the reader set a few parameters: left- or full-justified, space between paragraphs or not, paragraph indent, size of type. I read all of these wish lists for new features when the basic feature--properly displaying text--isn't even in place yet!

We have RSS feeds and people are talking about newspapers and magazines and textbooks and large color screens and interactivity and on and on...and we can't even get black text to look right!

[Emmaleigh]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Years ago I wrote that what most people wanted was a $99 reader that reads MS-reader files. Now I've changed my mind: What most people want is a $99 reader that reads epub files.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by harryE123

More people would even give you a cd instead of usb flash drive, much more, so what?

No, I'm given a CD very rarely. I'm handed a USB key much more often. People find it a lot more convenient to copy the files to a USB key than to find a blank CD, burn the files onto it, then hand me that.

Originally Posted by harryE123

Now they very appropriately did away with the usb slot on slim tablets, it doesn't even fit properly. But to complain that this is unthinkable when there are so many workarounds.... Even if you can't get people to email you files, you can still (easily) jailbreak the ipad and have a usb slot with the miniscule camera kit you pop in, or you could use any of the wifi+usb+sd card readers on the side and transfer everything to the ipad that way.

But why should I have to have the bother of those workarounds? Doesn't it seem reasonable that I'd want a device that can simply handle the USB method? Sure, in the future I may not need the USB port. Great. But for now I want a device that fits with the way my world works now. For exactly the same reason, I want my tablet to run Flash, so that when I visit the websites that I already use regularly (the BBC, my subscription Tennis TV site, and plenty more) I can access the content.

Originally Posted by harryE123

(btw, put an itunes library on a nas and access it from everywhere, what's the big deal - and now with airplay stream any content from within an idevice via apple tv to any stereo/tv system.)

I wasn't suggesting that the Apple ecosystem couldn't do that, I was stating that my existing solution could also do that.

Originally Posted by harryE123

If the extra few gb on an sd card slot are also that important to you, fine by me, but the ipad is offered with ample storage, so I can understand an sd card slot for a 4gb flash slate but for a 32gb or a 64gd I can't see what that would give you.

That's not the reason I want the SD Card slot, although surely being able to extend the storage capacity of the tablet is a benefit?

I need the SD Card slot so that when I'm out and about with my tablet and someone takes the SD Card out of their camera and hands it to me I can immediately load those pictures onto my tablet.

Originally Posted by harryE123

So it's your choice, complain about the lack of a few extra gbs in an sd card slot or go along with the times and get a few tens of gbs, or even hundreds via a home or cloud server?

Again, you're accusing me of being behind the times rather than accepting that I may have legitimate reasons for wanting these extra ports in my tablet that co-exist with my being an IT industry professional who already has a NAS device with a media server, who uses VNC connections to computers on my network, VPN connections to remote networks, and who already synchronises several GBs of cloud data through DropBox.

Graham

[oggelbe2007]

Interesting Harry you demand innovation in one technical arena: E-ink, yet you shill for a device which is completely locked down. E-Ink is still developing, Ipad is a dead end.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Graham

But why should I have to have the bother of those workarounds? Doesn't it seem reasonable that I'd want a device that can simply handle the USB method? Sure, in the future I may not need the USB port. Great. But for now I want a device that fits with the way my world works now. For exactly the same reason, I want my tablet to run Flash, so that when I visit the websites that I already use regularly (the BBC, my subscription Tennis TV site, and plenty more) I can access the content.

Not disagreeing with you here. Although what I've found is that Apple (and especially management) hates designing for "now". They almost always ditch what they consider to be the "old tech" before the "new tech" to replace it is completely ready. They did it with the first iMac (ditching the old ADB for USB), and various other Macs and devices over the years. This isn't really new behavior for them. I think Apple is pushing for devices that can connect to the cloud and share via the cloud, but the development to make that a reality is a little slower than some would have liked. Sneakernets like you describe are still common because it is partly habit that needs to change as well.

Originally Posted by oggelbe2007

Interesting Harry you demand innovation in one technical arena: E-ink, yet you shill for a device which is completely locked down. E-Ink is still developing, Ipad is a dead end.

I'll give the iPad this: there isn't anything stopping me from taking my content into the Apple ecosystem, and then walking away with it afterwards. DRM is a big problem, but if you can dodge that, Apple's leaning on open standards means I'm not locked into their ecosystem. Hell, it's pretty much the only reason I use an iPad myself. I don't have to buy their DRM'd content to make use of what is good about the device. And I'll leave the MPEG-4 vs MKV/etc debate for another thread, not worth getting into here. The Apple ecosystem is no more locked down than Amazon's, Sony's, or B&N's. These are devices sold with specific functions, and are "locked down" in that sense.

It's also hard to say a technology is developing, and compare it to a product. There's nothing saying a product cannot adapt and use new technology. Technologies can be dead ends, or revolutionary. Products are simply either wanted or not. It's a minor, but important distinction.

[EowynCarter]

other than shear prejudice I wonder why no one would want to be part of the premier ecosystem of apps, media, and syncing in itunes...

Well, i just can't stand syncying software in general.
There is no iTunes for linux.
Work only with iDevices, and iDevice are not woth the money apple asks. As a mater of fact, iTunes is one of the reason i won't buy an iPod / iPad / iPhone.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

Not disagreeing with you here. Although what I've found is that Apple (and especially management) hates designing for "now". They almost always ditch what they consider to be the "old tech" before the "new tech" to replace it is completely ready. They did it with the first iMac (ditching the old ADB for USB), and various other Macs and devices over the years. This isn't really new behavior for them. I think Apple is pushing for devices that can connect to the cloud and share via the cloud, but the development to make that a reality is a little slower than some would have liked. Sneakernets like you describe are still common because it is partly habit that needs to change as well.

Absolutely, I've got no issue with Apple designing their products for the future. But until the future arrives, and until those habits change, I have legitimate reasons for wanting certain features in the tablet I buy.

Note that I'm not pushing for a device that can't connect and share via the cloud; I'm already using cloud computing and agree that it has some great benefits. But I don't want to be cut off from older-fashioned file transfer methods until the cloud is fast enough and in sufficiently wide use to make the older methods obsolete.

Graham

[J. Strnad]

I don't want to be cut off from older-fashioned file transfer methods until the cloud is fast enough and in sufficiently wide use to make the older methods obsolete.

Heck, I wish they'd have gotten talking on a cell phone perfected before zooming off into all of these other uses. They still sound like crap most of the time.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Heck, I wish they'd have gotten talking on a cell phone perfected before zooming off into all of these other uses. They still sound like crap most of the time.

I still can't get over the fact that when I'm talking to someone on the other side of the planet it sounds great, but often sounds rubbish when they're just around the corner.

Graham

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The problem with cloud computing is one isn't always where even a 3G connection is available.