well, well.

it wasn't a larger strategy announcement. but an iceberg in disguise.

the name sucks. seriously sucks. cue the isle 12 jokes.

it's not just a double sized screen. it's 1024x768. 480x320 that makes is 5.somethingX larger pixel wise.

786,432 vs 153,600

http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

interesting to me was how much time was spent "browsing." this is a secondary feature. showing the New York Times as a feature is funny because it's the same old thing. the NYT app looks horrible. sure, it's not even beta. but where is the gorgeous type design? having it look just like a newspaper is a mistake I think.

why mono? oh yeah. accessories.

picture sharing is an app that we will see.

of all the things not to show is iChat.

weird that there is no camara(s) on it. PhotoBooth would be a killer demo app.

I wonder how long it will take Stanza to get here?

you know, Zune looks more modern than iTunes. http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/default.htm

what's the what with Lala? we shall see as it transitions? it won't be long before we see the google search return iTunes instead of Lala. for example:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=they+might+be+giants+particle+man

the kids that are complaining already about the difference between ePaper and LCD for reading have never read a book on an iPhone. the "strain on eyes" from an LCD is not a problem. you just change the brightness or the background color to something less white.

you have to pay $99 to get the 3.2 SDK beta. yuck.

Completely meh.

Honestly, this is the first Apple product in years I didn't whip out a card and buy on day one. Not saying anything other than I'm not interested in it and I don't know what need it fills or market it suits.

The prices are way too high for a "big iPod touch" and I don't see this being the killer mainstream device the iPhone is / was.

lvthunder:Scott Bourne said this will be good to tether to your camera, but as it is your not going to be able to do that.

Actually you will be able to if you buy the accessory for it.

Pointless for me. I don't need a big iPhone. I have an iPhone. I wanted something I could use instead of my netbook. This doesn't fill that.

Also, for god's sake keep the mic away from Justine. "Um, it was cool, so smooth".

Rofl...still no multitasking and they have audacity to make fun of netbooks. Wonder what the excuse will be this time since with the iPhone it was about the battery. I see no reason to dump my touch for this.

Stewsburntmonkey:I don't think Apple is looking to make excuses. It has decided multitasking can be done using notifications, saved state and core applications. Apple doesn't seem to feel there is a pressing need to incorporate full multitasking, which I've got to say I tend to agree with. There are a handful of applications that would be nice to run in the background, but they are quite limited and are more in the domain of techies than the mass market consumer.

I completely disagree with that. Apple has decided it can try to mimic multitasking, but that doesn't mean it has mimicked multitasking, just a rough approximation.

There are a handful of applications, but let's not put them in the "you have to be an extreme geek to care" category. Stuff like Pandora / Slacker / Sirius XM are WAY more useful since I jailbroke my phone and installed Pro-Switcher. In fact, for all Apple's "concern" about background apps eating performance and battery, I've seen no such ill-effects. The average person (ie: the mass market consumer) won't think about the stupidity of not letting a music player run in the background until they use it for the first time. At that point, they'll wonder who in their right mind thinks it's acceptable that if you want to listen to Sirius, you can't do anything else on your device.

Stupid. Period.

Now, take that argument and expand it because the iPad is significantly larger and more powerful. Imagine a 10" screen that can only run one app at a time. Engadget nailed it when they said "all that power and not a lot you can actually do with it." While the fast games and high res screen are great, I reckon there isn't a lot here that people don't already have in their current Touch / iPhone.

As for people buying it, I think it'll fail. Not catastrophically, but it'll fail. Why? Because I just don't see who this appeals to. It's too expensive to be an impulse device. It's too big to be a "toss in your bag and forget it" device. It's too limited in functionality to replace a Netbook of equivalent cost, and it's too limited by the OS to replace an actual computer (although for many functions, admittedly, it'll work fine), so I just don't see who buys this thing. Sure lots of Apple fans will rush out on day one and pick one up, but a month after launch, it'll be interesting to see if it moves of shelves at all.

Oh yeah, and AT&T? Really? I mean, I don't have issues with it (seriously, I don't), but I know I'm in the minority there. Did they not learn anything?

Vincenzosi:
Now, take that argument and expand it because the iPad is significantly larger and more powerful. Imagine a 10" screen that can only run one app at a time. Engadget nailed it when they said "all that power and not a lot you can actually do with it." While the fast games and high res screen are great, I reckon there isn't a lot here that people don't already have in their current Touch / iPhone.

I think it is amusing that society is so ADD that it thinks to actually get something done you have to be working on 10 things at once. It's a bit absurd since when you really want to get something done, you focus on that one thing. How does not running some music app in the background make you unproductive?

There are a ton of applications that can use the bigger screen to do real work. The vfx community is already talking about things like color correction control surfaces designed for the iPad. This is something that needs the bigger real estate. Likewise musicians are looking at many of the musical iPhone apps which are cute now, but too small to be real tools. And then there is the fairly mundane stuff like being able to give up analog newspapers, magazines and textbooks for digital versions. Newspapers have been struggling to find a way to do digital distribution, but neither the web on computers or eInk devices really work well. The computers are not comfortable ways to read for most people and eInk devices are clumsy to navigate. A device like the iPad solves both problems, as natural to read as an eInk device and as easy to navigate as a computer.

Vincenzosi:As for people buying it, I think it'll fail. Not catastrophically, but it'll fail. Why? Because I just don't see who this appeals to. It's too expensive to be an impulse device. It's too big to be a "toss in your bag and forget it" device. It's too limited in functionality to replace a Netbook of equivalent cost, and it's too limited by the OS to replace an actual computer (although for many functions, admittedly, it'll work fine), so I just don't see who buys this thing. Sure lots of Apple fans will rush out on day one and pick one up, but a month after launch, it'll be interesting to see if it moves of shelves at all.

It is interesting how closely the forecasts of doom following the announcement mirror the iPhone's launch. That said this device is a harder sell than the iPhone, but I think the price point is actually pretty good especially when you look at the cost savings of digitally distributed media versus the print equivalent. The New York Times is $300+ for a year subscription. The digital version is free, for now, but even when they charged it was a fraction of that. People ended up flocking to the Kindle even though it was originally $400 (the iPad-size Kindle DX is currently $489, so $10 less than the iPad). The iPad is much more capable than the Kindle. I think we can also expect the price to drop as the years go on much as they have with the iPhone.

Vincenzosi:

Aside from Dvorak and Rob Enderle, I don't know who forecasted doom for the iPhone. I work in the industry, and have for the past 13 years, and frankly, we all knew it was a damn revolution from day one and we don't even sell it. In fact, everyone thought so. The iPhone took a device that EVERYONE has and uses and just flat out made it better. You want to talk a "magical revolutionary" device, the iPhone was it. The iPad, most certainly is not.

The blogosphere was crazy with iPhone doom predictions before it went on-sale. Hell, even the old TWiT forums were full of them.

Vincenzosi:And stop comparing it to the Kindle or I'm gonna start comparing the iPhone to walkie talkies.

Why? The Kindle DX is $10 less than the iPad. They are similar sized and both can be eBook readers. Seems like a pretty clear comparison to me. However, I think your comparison between iPhones and walkie talkies is apt. The iPad is clearly far more sophisticated and capable than the Kindle, yet the price point is similar. If the Kindle can be successful, surely there is a market for the iPad.

One thing I would like to see in both the iPhone and the iPad is less reliance on tethering to a full-size computer. I think especially with the iPad it would be nice for it to be able to operate autonomously. I'd like to see podcast subscriptions and file storage (with a Finder) on the devices. I'd like both devices not to sync with a computer, but simply share with it. I will be interested to see how much of this sort of thing gets integrated into the iPad.

I also think the sales of this device will likely be gradually building as the iPhone sales were. This is a device that will be a paradigm shift for most people in how they view personal computing. It will take some time for people to evaluate it. It is also a device that will likely replace an existing computer for many people (the second computer, home laptop, etc.) much like the iPhone was a replacement phone for most people. With the iPhone we saw sales increase as people's old plans terminated and they could freely switch. I think with the iPad you will see a lot of people holding off evaluating it until one of their existing computers needs replacing. Since computers are replaced less frequently than phones the sales growth may not reach a maximum for several years.

I've had some gift cards and money set aside for either a netbook or whatever Apple was going to announce, and I'm a lot less impressed with the iPad than I thought I'd be. As a secondary device, a netbook gives you so many more options. I'm looking for a small computer I can use for notes in class, web browsing, and maybe some terminal/remote desktop things. I guess you can do a lot of that on the iPad, but I think I'm going to be so much happier with a netbook.

> Part of the issue is that while a netbook does everything, it doesn't really do anything all that well.

I've built some solutions around netbooks that turned out to do those jobs extremely well. in all cases the alternative was a notebook or a desktop. but by using the netbook instead of those took the "my that is expensive" or "can it do other stuff because it seems like a waste to dedicate that machine for" to a understanding that all it was going to do was that one thing.

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more "hacks" being done with netbooks as the basis. you know, low cost, light on power requirements, so what if it's slow, cheap to the point where you just replace it if it breaks.

here's why NOT having Flash is a benefit.

http://gimmefrictionbaby.com/

you are SO lucky. the amount of time this game has taken from me can be measured in days.

Hmm...on second thought. I'm in industrial sales and carry a laptop on sales calls. Most of my calls I'm standing and walking in the plant. For one, I get tired of carrying a bag with a laptop and picture book in it. Two, I rarely have the chance to stop and open my laptop and show my customer the sweet videos and demos I have on my puter. The ipad could come in quite handy for decreasing all I tend to carry and be much more convenient to show someone.
The goofing around with it in the evening would be a plus as well.

if i were going to get something like this i would go for a more open (android based) system.

yep that was the one i was thinking of, hate those huge bezels though.

iPhone doesn't know about shared iTunes or iPhoto. and there was no demo of this.

the whole external storage/sharing isn't mentioned at all. there needs to be a way to back it up without needed iTunes. maybe this is going to change in the next 60 days. but as of today the Big Thing really is an island.

skellener:I have an actual question about the iPad. Maybe one of you knows.

If you are using it around the house with WiFi, and you have sharing turned on in iTunes & iPhoto, will it work with the iPad? I mean, if I got one, I would probably use it around the house. I don't think there would be any need to store music and photos on it if I could just access the ones on the Mac. Since a MacBook and OS X can view and listen to music shared on the network, do you think this will work on the iPad? I think it makes the low end storage model very attractive if there's not need to store things on the device.

One would hope, though this may be one those things that doesn't make it into the initial release but is part of 2.0.

I think an updated AppleTV that acts more as a media server would tie in perfectly with this. It could be like an AppleTV when you want to view stuff on your TV, but would have an always on server that would let you stream to other devices. Maybe it could even do network backups of your other computers. I would also like to see the idea of syncing go away in favor of a sharing model where each device can be a world unto itself, but there is the option to link multiple devices if so desired and share content between them (ideally wirelessly).

I surf and get along without Flash quite well on my iPod touch, thank you very much.

If Flash could be less buggy and more stable, then perhaps Apple would listen, but there are many other better alternatives to Flash for all of the content you posted above deadite66. Many of the websites will probably have mobile or App-based versions anyway basically making sites with Flash alone and desperate for attention. I see that as a growing trend, so get use to Flash being ignored.

I’m more concerned about the lack of multitasking on the iPad. If that is a 4.0 thing, then I’d seriously get one. I just want to wait 6 months to see what kind of developments arise before taking the plunge…or is it, drink the portable keg of Cool-aid?

:-P

You may want to see this

so don't.

I don't have a data plan for my phone. and I'm never going to as long as I can possibly help it. the way that I see it there is wifi some where. and for 83% of things that's fine. the time that it's not is when I'm on a bus/train/cab. and I really can't help someone while I'm stuck in that environment.

EdXeno,

No, you don’t have to. Just get the cheaper Wi-Fi only version or get the 3G one and pay-as-you-go. I really think it’s pretty trivial, actually.

rudedog:
I would assume ATT will have some type of activation fee of at least $30 on top of the monthly fee, knowing them it could be much higher to activate it each time.

From the Apple presentation it sounded like there was no activation or cancellation fee. It sounded like it would similar to the paid wireless access they do at certain coffee shops and airports.

we won't know until it actually ships. but it may work similar to the way AT&T wifi works for hotspots now. once you enter your phones digits you can use the hotspot without nags for 24 hours. and after that time you have to re-enter your digits. the data plan might not be a "month to month" but more like a 30 day recurring using a credit card or if you have a Blue Death Star contract it asks you if you want another 30 when it expires. if your account is in good standing you you get your bits. that would be the sane way to make it work.

I hope so guys,

I'm actually looking forward to getting all my Mag subscriptions on this thing. Go figure, I bet my wife's school will incorporate this in the next Nursing class. I think she has spend over $3000 on text books so far and will graduate this June.....