25 replies to this topic

[criticalmass]

iPad” for consumers who want to take their movies, TV shows, music, games and reading with them, be it around the house or on the go.

“We want to kick off 2010 with a truly revolutionary and magical product,” CEO Steve Jobs told a packed audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Apple’s new product comes at a time when e-readers, like Amazon’s Kindle and others from Barnes & Noble and Sony are on the market, with more coming this year from companies such as Samsung and the Hearst Corp.

This thing is going to rock






http://it-networks.org/?m=20100127

[SigFLUP]

where can I buy 12 please?

[dinscurge]

anyone got a link/info on the hardware? as yeah my cell phone does all that. hopefully its not something lame like a n270

[nyphonejacks]

i would not mind a netbook sized tablet... which i assume that this is...

but i have never purchased an apple product, and i don't intend to start now...

[SigFLUP]

but i have never purchased an apple product, and i don't intend to start now...

well that's not very hip, is it?

[Aghaster]

I'm sure it'll provide a great user experience, but I don't feel like spending all that money when it's almost the price of a real laptop. Also, I really don't feel like locking me in. It would be truly awesome though if someone ports Android to the iPad

[nyphonejacks]

but i have never purchased an apple product, and i don't intend to start now...

well that's not very hip, is it?

i do not need an "i" device, just because everyone else has one... especially when alternatives are usually better constructed, and cheaper...

[livinded]

I'm a happy Apple customer with my iPhone and Macbook Pro, but I think I'll be passing on this. The real thing this offers me is ebook reading which is definitely something I want, but not on a screen like that. From the little I've used of friend's kindles I've been very happy with e-ink, however I'm holding out for the colored e-ink that is supposed to make it's way into the ebook readers later this year. Reading a book on a LCD screen is just not something I would want to do unless I was simply skimming of looking for something specific. I'm sure there are a lot of really cool things you can do with the iPad, and if all you're interested in is the apps, games, and the fact that it does everything a netbook does I'm sure it's great for those purposes. Price-wise it seems very competitive with netbooks and the lower end laptops while staying below the tablet laptops out there. The fact that it's unlocked in nice, and the GSM support is probably going to be worth the money as everyone I've talked to with an iPod Touch has basically said they love it but wish they could have the iPhone because there are always times they need internet access and aren't around wifi.

[SigFLUP]

Anyone know what processor and video chip the ipad has?

[dinscurge]

http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/
found it. looks like the same garbage hardware as always. o well. will be a big hit with people that want an expensive toy .

[SigFLUP]

http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/
found it. looks like the same garbage hardware as always. o well. will be a big hit with people that want an expensive toy .

What exactly is the a4? is that a processor, graphics chip or perhaps both? Doesn't strike me as being terribly standard hardware

[dinscurge]

probbaly both similar to a ghetto intel video chipset where it just uses the main proc/bunch of the system ram. i wouldnt be suprised if its just a supped up iphone, its propeitary apple. and guessing by the low/really low "3g" speed its probably not too amazing + its apple so they wont list any specs for it.

[nyphonejacks]

I'm a happy Apple customer with my iPhone and Macbook Pro, but I think I'll be passing on this. The real thing this offers me is ebook reading which is definitely something I want, but not on a screen like that. From the little I've used of friend's kindles I've been very happy with e-ink, however I'm holding out for the colored e-ink that is supposed to make it's way into the ebook readers later this year. Reading a book on a LCD screen is just not something I would want to do unless I was simply skimming of looking for something specific. I'm sure there are a lot of really cool things you can do with the iPad, and if all you're interested in is the apps, games, and the fact that it does everything a netbook does I'm sure it's great for those purposes. Price-wise it seems very competitive with netbooks and the lower end laptops while staying below the tablet laptops out there. The fact that it's unlocked in nice, and the GSM support is probably going to be worth the money as everyone I've talked to with an iPod Touch has basically said they love it but wish they could have the iPhone because there are always times they need internet access and aren't around wifi.

no support for flash.. and a lot of other features missing out... i do not think ebook readers have anything to worry about with this device, because as you mentioned, the display on an ereader is easier on the eyes.. but for now my netbook was cheaper, and can do more than this POS(with the exception of not being touch screen)

i guess i might pick one of these up, when it is in the clearance pile in the best buy for about $20 or so... otherwise, ill pass...

[SigFLUP]

probbaly both similar to a ghetto intel video chipset where it just uses the main proc/bunch of the system ram. i wouldnt be suprised if its just a supped up iphone, its propeitary apple. and guessing by the low/really low "3g" speed its probably not too amazing + its apple so they wont list any specs for it.

Hmm.. I'm curious because I think I'd only be interested in this if it ran linux. I wonder what sort of security it has, I at least know that they don't allow you to install software from anywhere but the apple store- so I wonder what restrictions mechanisms it employs. In other words, fuck ipad- DUKENUKEM FOREVER!!

Edited by SigFLUP, 28 January 2010 - 12:29 AM.

[ozlo]

So it's basically an overpriced, oversized iPhone. Brilliant.

[livinded]

According to http://twitter.com/iFixit the A4 is a chip that provides the CPU, graphics, memory management, etc. I assume it's ARM based considering that Apple has used ARM chips for their mobile devices and that they bought an ARM processor manufacturer last year. It would make sense since they have always been a hardware company that they are not producing their own chips for their needs. The iPad is supposed to be running the next version of the iPhone OS with some of the apps rewritten or given new nibs. I would assume it's using the same protections as the iPhone and iPod Touch. Like the iPhone OS it's all based on OS X with mach and xnu kernel.

Dinscurge I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about though. Apple generally uses pretty high end hardware, which is one of the reasons it's so expensive. Sure you can get a shitty dell inspiron machine for way less, but it's going to come with a shitty intel integrated graphics card instead of the nice nvidia gforce ones. Apple has always used higher end x86 cpus instead of the celeron ones like other manufacturers. Assuming it's an ARM chip there really isn't any reason you couldn't run linux on it once you hack it, but why would you want to run linux on it when you can use a pimped out BSD?

Edited by livinded, 28 January 2010 - 02:15 AM.

[lattera]

I'm glad to see technology progressing in this field. Tablets have long been a niche market. Apple will hopefully open up the tablet market as they have done with the media player market. That said, I'd be tempted to buy one if it could run third-party apps in the background. It'd be really nice to have Pandora in the background while reading an ebook. If I ever get a tablet, it'll probably be running Android.

Before anyone starts trying to explain to me that the reason why Apple doesn't allow third-party apps to go into the background is because of battery life, let me explain why that argument is silly. Who would buy Apple products and not be near any type of power source at least once per day? The power source could be: computer, wall outlet, or car. I highly doubt there is a single person in today's society that would buy an iPad and not be near a power source at least once per day. Yes, it can be annoying to have to plug in your electronic device; but it's completely doable. The argument of backgrounding apps draining the battery is moot.

[zandi]

i haven't read too much about this thing, but from what i do know it's not something i would buy. it's basically an iphone but bigger and more expensive, is more expensive than my netbook and does less without a physical keyboard. it would be cool to see how the hacking/jailbreaking goes on this thing, but i still say it's overpriced. The only redeeming factor seems to be that you can read books on it, but at $500 that's more than i'd pay for an e-book reader. i'd also imagine whatever book distribution system that's used will be some itunes spinoff that i won't like either, but i haven't heard anything about that yet.

if i want the (relative) power of a computer, i've got my netbook. if i want instant hit-the-button-then-go web surfing, i have my touch. i'm cheap, and it doesn't fulfill a need for me.

[Minishark]

This is the reason I won't be getting one:

http://www.fsf.org/news/ibad_launch

[dinscurge]

I'm glad to see technology progressing in this field. Tablets have long been a niche market. Apple will hopefully open up the tablet market as they have done with the media player market. That said, I'd be tempted to buy one if it could run third-party apps in the background. It'd be really nice to have Pandora in the background while reading an ebook. If I ever get a tablet, it'll probably be running Android.

Before anyone starts trying to explain to me that the reason why Apple doesn't allow third-party apps to go into the background is because of battery life, let me explain why that argument is silly. Who would buy Apple products and not be near any type of power source at least once per day? The power source could be: computer, wall outlet, or car. I highly doubt there is a single person in today's society that would buy an iPad and not be near a power source at least once per day. Yes, it can be annoying to have to plug in your electronic device; but it's completely doable. The argument of backgrounding apps draining the battery is moot.

not really the apple machines are usually horrible i mean for $2000 you can get a quadcore i7 laptop or you can get the apple dualcore one. i mean your only paying like $500 for macosx on that deal. + i wasnt even tlaking about their computers i was talking about their phones iphone, iphone 3g, iphone 3gs, considering all of them are slower than the first 3g (kaiser), and thats in the special $829 ipad or w.e. for that price could get a snapdragon and have like 17mbps on a totally overpriced unlocked phone. the only nice thing is alot of storage and it probably has the majority of the system ram for video which is probably why a majority of the applications are useless guis, like being able to shake the iphone and have it google restaurants in your area using the gps. they probably dont want programs in the background because it would probably be pretty obviously slower if you ran any "intensive" program