10 ms·

The iPad Big Picture

148 points by fogus 17y ago

eel 17y ago
A post entitled The iPad Big Picture seems to be lacking in something that I would consider to be part of a big picture: what will the product be used for? Is it intended to be a replacement for the laptop? Or is it a supplement to the laptop, filling a previously unseen niche between the phone and the laptop?
- jsz0 17y ago
  Personally I think it's a complimentary device. Some apps are just going to work better with a multi-touch interface than a traditional keyboard/mouse setup. Judging by the amount of new UI elements it appears you can write some serious, near desktop quality, applications for the iPad. I think a very common usage scenario is going to be using the iPad in conjunction with your laptop or desktop. For example, I think multi-touch web browsing is a much better experience than a keyboard/mouse browser experience. It's just easier to move around pages and zoom in. If I had an iPad sitting on my desk next to my keyboard and mouse I suspect a good chunk of my browsing would be done on the iPad.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Looking at it, honestly, it's something I'd use instead of a laptop for a lot of cases, from sitting around in a coffeeshop to catch up on feeds to going to conferences (since it can do Keynote, which is the only thing I currently actually need a laptop for).
  - adw 17y ago
    The highlighting stuff in Keynote (telestrator mode!) looks seriously awesome. Imagine you're in a VC meeting and you're doing financial projections. You could all stare at a big screen, or you could put one of these down in the middle of the table, say "here, let's work on it together!" and you're away. It's all about the form-factor and the utter reliability. This is a great replacement for a road-warrior meeting laptop - what the MacBook Air was trying to be - and it's the ideal computer to buy for your granny or your kid brother who wants to check their email and write the odd letter. (Much less use if what you do on the move is program, but that's OK. It's not aimed at you.)
    - ubernostrum 17y ago
      Pretty much. I almost never do actual coding at a conference; I do my talks, I take notes in other sessions, I read interesting links and occasionally pop in to IRC. I don't need a laptop for that, but since the laptop's the only thing I have which does all those things I end up taking it. Plus the iPad would probably be a nicer device to have with me on the plane...
freetard 17y ago
They're not making their own CPU, their just licensing ARM tech and adding a few spins to the thing.
- gvb 17y ago
  In the same way stock car racing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing is just taking stock cars and turning them into race cars.
jared314 17y ago
The bragging could also be an attempt to separate the continued success of Apple and the employment of Steve Jobs.
chime 17y ago
What nobody talks about is the impact iPad could have on the data-entry / industrial market. I'm pretty certain that I'll be buying a bunch of the 16GB $499 iPads for my job (pharma manufacturing). Make a simple web-app for collecting data and the iPad replaces paper easier than any other 4x more expensive tablet. No need to setup or install software or custom apps: Safari + default onscreen keyboard works just fine.
- bjplink 17y ago
  As I was tracking the press conference on the live blogs I had the same thoughts as you did. One of my larger clients is a factory setting using a custom built web app for, among many things, inventory control. When it comes time to do physical hard counts we've been stuck using crappy Dell laptops and pads of legal paper. The 16 gig iPad is perfectly priced and seems more than capable of handling our web app. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for the iPad in industrial/factory settings.
  - chime 17y ago
    We did our full physical inventory using MC70s http://www.barcodesinc.com/symbol/mc70.htm http://www.barcodesinc.com/symbol/mc70.htm last month and had absolutely no problems. I bought a total of twelve Wifi MC70s at a cost of $1600 each. I would have absolutely no problem buying 20 iPads if they can replace the mountains of paperwork that need to be filled in manually for every single production run of a pharma product. I would have bought a CrunchPad for $300-ish but I'm willing to pay more for iPad because of the battery life and quality. Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB.
    - jonknee 17y ago
      > Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB. That's going to be tough. Apple controls the 30-pin connector and I haven't heard of any barcode scanners. You're probably better off looking for Bluetooth. Since it supports BT keyboards, you could likely find one that pairs as a keyboard. Won't be cheap, but hey neither were the MC70s.
alex_c 17y ago
they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. Let's not get carried away. It's only fair to make that statement once Apple DOES cram the A4 into an iPhone and blows the competition out of the water. (I'm assuming that's the plan, but until then, the comparison implied by calling it a "mobile CPU" is a bit pointless).
- boucher 17y ago
  I have no idea how John Gruber could possibly think he has a remotely informed opinion on what constitutes the "best mobile CPU in the world".
  - bootload 17y ago
    "... Steve has a reality distortion field.' 'A what?' 'A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.' ..." Gruber needs some grounding against the "Reality Distortion Field" ~ http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Reality_Distortion_Field.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
    - alex_c 17y ago
      I'm a bit surprised though - I've only read Daring Fireball over the past year or so, since I started doing iPhone development, and it's usually pretty rational. I did a double-take when I read this one (and the words "reality distortion field" did cross my mind).
  - sh1mmer 17y ago
    He's a blogger.
waterlesscloud 17y ago
I wonder how much the decision not to have multitasking was influenced by the desire to have the ipad look fast?
- boucher 17y ago
  Probably none. Multi-task, if it comes, will come on the iPhone and iPad at the same time. They either aren't ready to figure out how it fits into the OS model, or they've decided it shouldn't for now.
- cubicle67 17y ago
  I was wondering if it would work creating a second type of app, a Service, that has no gui and only runs in the background. They'd have an api that allows them to communicate with a regular app. This way, something like Pandora could be split in two, with the background service running constantly, but the gui closing as usual. This make it easier to manage background tasks, and also eliminate the problem of users leaving all their apps running. I guess if the makers of a Service decided to make their api public, other people could develop alternate front ends for it as well.
- phil 17y ago
  I think Apple has decided they don't like multitasking on its merits. You can only do one thing at a time, so why run more than one application? Instead, they're putting their effort into making application launch and exit very fast, and cautioning developers that they should save all important state, and restore it all next time.
- chibea 17y ago
  I think so, too. If you think about what is making Android devices run so slow, it's almost always some misbehaving background services. Unless there isn't some smarter way controlling the scheduling of foreground applications, there won't be multitasking and fast speed at the same time with a comparable CPU.
jsz0 17y ago
I think the iPad will be successful but it will have more of an iPod success curve versus an iPhone out-of-the-gate smash hit curve. I believe there are some pieces that aren't in place yet. I think eventually, to hit the magic price point, Apple needs to find a way to subsidize the iPad without a cellular carrier. I suspect that will be in the form of an iTunes subscription program. Shave $100 off the cost to build it and subsidize it by $200 via an $8/month charge built into the subscription program. All you can eat books, movies, music and TV. $199 out the door. That's the point where everyone will want an iPad the same way the iPhone became hugely successful at the same price point. $499 is a very reasonable starting point for now. I think they'll easily sell 3-5 million of them this year. The last thought I have is that Apple's hype machine probably got a little ahead of themselves here. CNN had the iPad release as their Breaking News story for a couple hours today. That's probably a sign that your hype factor was impossibly high. That puts you firmly into backlash territory. I would expect to see another round of features/enhancements/deals shortly before it's release -- probably in conjunction with iPhone OS 4.
- jonknee 17y ago
  For $199 (clean, no subscription) it might be worth having on the coffee table. I guess I can give it a few revs like I did the iPhone.
- olefoo 17y ago
  Yeah, this is a 1.0 release And it will get better after a few years of field experience. I think that after the level of hype we saw, it had to be a let down. But, I do think this will be a hit for some unexpected applications. I could see deploying one almost anywhere a stylish but not terribly powerful terminal is needed. A lot of salespeople will be buying these. To most technically inclined people the iPad won't have much appeal beyond being a shiny toy. But to many professional people who are not technically inclined it will be a useful tool that feeds their need to feel in control of technology rather than at the mercy of it.
- tjogin 17y ago
  Didn't it take until iPhone 3G for the iPhone to really fly off the shelves?
pavs 17y ago
I am a big fan of apple product and I don't wanna be rude to the author, mostly because I don't know much about him. But this post reminds me of a typical obnoxious apple fanboy. "Its not only good, it awesome, super, duper good." Lets not get carried away now. We know almost nothing about the processor. We don't know how it will compare against a similar range intel processor. We don't know how much the ipad OS (which obviously isn't _exactly_ the same as iphone OS) was optimized for this processor. Most importantly we can only speculate about apple's _real_ reason for going into chip making business, it might not be because they have a better product - but in the long run it might be cheaper for them to make their own.
- tjmc 17y ago
  "Apple fanboy" is kind of the generic term. I think "fawning sycophant" and "groveling lick-spittle" describe Gruber better.
  - simonw 17y ago
    http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords
    - tjmc 17y ago
      Well chosen response. Guess I deserve the down mods of the grey t-shirt and commie star brigade!
- FraaJad 17y ago
  Gruber, the author is the alpha dog of mac fanboys. He sets the tone for the rest of the tribe. He is very good in what he does. What you see may be the remnants of the reality distortion field he was exposed to today ;)
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - dasil003 17y ago
spamizbad 17y ago
The author is way off base carping about the CPU. It's the fastest CPU on a mobile device because it's likely a 3-issue ARM11-derived CPU with out-of-order execution: that means PA Semi (now part of Apple) has designed a chip based on the Cortex A9 or started with an ARM11 and tacked on similar features, like Qualcomm did with the Snapdragon (in the Nexus One) instead of opting for an Cortex A8-derived core. When the Tegra2 and OMAP4 (Cortex-A9 derived ARM CPUs)start shipping in bulk the playing field is going to be leveled: now everyones got access to a 3-issue OOOE ARM11. Only these will (optionally) be multi-core, something Apple probably isn't interested in as it's not doing multitasking.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  When XYZ is released the playing field is going to be leveled When manufacturers start taking notice that unresponsive, laggy, slow devices are unpleasant to use, the playing field can start levelling. Until then everyone else is doing a Wintel - hardware many times faster, normal activities just as slow as ever. It's not hardware, it's software that matters, it's design. I've been humming and hawing about whether this will be worth a look given the obvious things to gripe about. I heard on one of the post-announcement streams that the first impressions were roughly "heavier than expected, unbelievably responsive". This quote from DF "if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be “fast”." really pushes me strongly in favour. I'm interested. If nobody else is going to push for responsive software and Apple are, then I'm going to lean more in Apple's direction.
  - barrkel 17y ago
    I would rather put it the other way around: one of the most noticeable things about the iPhone / iPod touch is its slowness, the little glitches in the animations where the rendering drops a few frames, the pauses before there's a response to pressing the big button. Wintel very much isn't "slow as ever", in my experience. Desktop machines are another class of hardware altogether; I have 12GB of memory, an SSD, 8 logical cores and 2 monitors on my desktop - nothing slow, laggy or unresponsive about it.
    - deleted 17y ago
ecq 17y ago
My wife absolutely loved the iPad so much she wants me to buy her 2. one for her and one for her brother. (and maybe one for me if i'm nice to her) This thing is going to be huge.
- dondemarco 17y ago
  this is why I'm never getting married :)
- pavs 17y ago
  >(and maybe one for me if i'm nice to her) Buy yourself a pair of balls too.
  - ecq 17y ago
    good advice
  - xenophanes 17y ago
    Don't be mean.
derefr 17y ago
> After using the iPhone so much for two and a half years, I’ve become accustomed to web pages rendering (relative to the Mac) slowly. On the iPad, they seem to render nearly instantly. (802.11n Wi-Fi helps too.) ...but the wi-fi doesn't actually help as much as you'd think. If you've ever tethered a 3G iPhone, the speed difference between web browsing on the phone, and web browsing through the phone is palpable; at this point, upgrading cell networks is a bit silly, as every phone in the market is too CPU-limited to render pages as fast as they're pulled down. Getting the A4 into the iPhone would likely be a bigger subjective speed boost than putting 3G in ever was.
- bmalicoat 17y ago
  Exactly. I doubt adding n over the iPhone's g did much to increase the browser's speed because the iPhone couldn't even consume all of g's throughput.
kingkawn 17y ago
Can we go back to how off this thing's name is?
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  Sure. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/01/22/canvas http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/01/22/canvas
tlack 17y ago
Wow! I was sure he would finally have something fair, balanced, or even perhaps negative to say about Apple! I am totally shocked that he found some obscure point about the iPad to harp on about rather than mentioning the many obvious negatives.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Yeah, Gruber's never criticized anything Apple's done. For example, he wouldn't dream of criticizing the App Store or its policies the way this guy did ("Rules you don’t know about are scary"? "To act fairly would be to follow the rules. To act capriciously is to be the rules"? Nobody who's been in the Reality Distortion Field would write that!): http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi... http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/wikipedia_app_age_ratings http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/wikipedia_app_age_ratings http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion
jsz0 17y ago
Looking at the big picture the thing that really stands out to me is the iWork demo. The built-in apps were a bit ho-hum because they are very basic applications like most of Apple's other bundled apps on other platforms but the iWork demo... You've got basically a near desktop quality application here. Look at all the new UI widgets, toolbars, drop down font selectors, a general purpose file-insertion tool using media browsers, a windowing system, context sensitive keyboards, etc. I can imagine we're going to see a lot of iPad applications that are near desktop quality. The first generation of powerful multi-touch software. This is where the people saying "it's just a big iPod Touch" are totally missing the point. iPad applications are going to be serious, nearly fully featured, applications.
- yankeeracer73 17y ago
  Agreed - I thought this was pretty damn impressive. I wonder how they're handling the file system behind the scenes. What will be the interface to save and open files? Some new file manager in itunes? A new hybrid interface pulling in elements of OS X?
jvdh 17y ago
The problem with computers and "feeling fast" though is that it tends to wear off.
- chrisbolt 17y ago
  Until you use one that doesn't.
fserb 17y ago
"He also said that when you consider MacBooks as “mobile” devices, Apple generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world" hits the bullshit alarm. Well, when you consider BMW cars as "mobile" devices, BMW generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world. C'mon, MacBooks as mobile devices? And only comparing with real mobile-only sales? Also, the tone of the article sounds even a bit religious: "This is something they want us to notice". Looks like one of those apocalypse cults after their expected end-of-the-world day blew off: a bit disappointed but they keep looking for a sign, because there must be one.
Tichy 17y ago
Claiming they have the best CPU after a couple of minutes testing the device as an end user seems way over the top. It's also not likely that the same CPU could simply be put into a phone.
- gvb 17y ago
  On the contrary, it is extremely likely that the A4 will be in the next iPhone. The CPU architecture is the same (ARM) and the peripherals are the same (video, etc.). It is an Apple ARM-SoC[1] rather than a Samsung/PortalPlayer/TI/whoever ARM-SoC[2]. The functionality is a perfect match, the physical size is likely to be a close match, the speed is much better, and the power efficiency appears to be similar or better (the iPad undoubtedly has a much larger battery). Look at the heritage: PA-Semi created a remarkably fast, remarkably low power PowerPC architecture SoC. They are very, very good. Apple bought them so that they could use that power, speed, and efficiency knowledge to create the A4. Reports are that they used the fast ARM Cortex A9 core and did their magic on the peripheral parts of the SoC. That is exactly what all the other ARM licensees are doing, except the others (arguably) don't have the same talent level as the PA-Semi engineers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip [2] http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumer_electronics/ipod_faq/ipod-processor-type-portal-player-samsung.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumer_electronics/i...
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
>They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing. Anyone else get a chill when reading this?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 17y ago
They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing. In the pre-taped video Apple showed, Bob Mansfield said of the iPad, “No one else could do it.” Only Apple. The Windows XP tablets really were quite impressive after about the 3rd iteration of the software. I have an old tc1100, and it's very nicely designed. Surfing, I must say is a pleasure on the thing. They also had Zinio magazines pacakged with the install. Of course the whole Windows software catalog is quite usable on the thing. But Windows Tablets went the way of the Amiga and a bunch of things by Atari. It's one thing to make great technology. It's another thing to market it. Apple can do both. Or rather, they can do 5 things very well: - Hardware - Software - Human Interface Design - Marketing - User/Developer Ecosystem If they weren't able to do all 5 of these very well, it wouldn't matter how great the devices are. Other companies do the hardware & the software. Some are even pretty good at the marketing. Very few companies do all 5 of these things as well as Apple does. (You can think of the success of both Firefox and Ubuntu as the introduction of good HID polish and Marketing to communities that already had the Software and a good User/Developer ecosystem.)

148 points by fogus 17y ago

eel 17y ago

A post entitled The iPad Big Picture seems to be lacking in something that I would consider to be part of a big picture: what will the product be used for? Is it intended to be a replacement for the laptop? Or is it a supplement to the laptop, filling a previously unseen niche between the phone and the laptop?

jsz0 17y ago
Personally I think it's a complimentary device. Some apps are just going to work better with a multi-touch interface than a traditional keyboard/mouse setup. Judging by the amount of new UI elements it appears you can write some serious, near desktop quality, applications for the iPad. I think a very common usage scenario is going to be using the iPad in conjunction with your laptop or desktop. For example, I think multi-touch web browsing is a much better experience than a keyboard/mouse browser experience. It's just easier to move around pages and zoom in. If I had an iPad sitting on my desk next to my keyboard and mouse I suspect a good chunk of my browsing would be done on the iPad.
ubernostrum 17y ago
Looking at it, honestly, it's something I'd use instead of a laptop for a lot of cases, from sitting around in a coffeeshop to catch up on feeds to going to conferences (since it can do Keynote, which is the only thing I currently actually need a laptop for).
- adw 17y ago
  The highlighting stuff in Keynote (telestrator mode!) looks seriously awesome. Imagine you're in a VC meeting and you're doing financial projections. You could all stare at a big screen, or you could put one of these down in the middle of the table, say "here, let's work on it together!" and you're away. It's all about the form-factor and the utter reliability. This is a great replacement for a road-warrior meeting laptop - what the MacBook Air was trying to be - and it's the ideal computer to buy for your granny or your kid brother who wants to check their email and write the odd letter. (Much less use if what you do on the move is program, but that's OK. It's not aimed at you.)
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    Pretty much. I almost never do actual coding at a conference; I do my talks, I take notes in other sessions, I read interesting links and occasionally pop in to IRC. I don't need a laptop for that, but since the laptop's the only thing I have which does all those things I end up taking it. Plus the iPad would probably be a nicer device to have with me on the plane...

freetard 17y ago

They're not making their own CPU, their just licensing ARM tech and adding a few spins to the thing.

gvb 17y ago
In the same way stock car racing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing is just taking stock cars and turning them into race cars.

jared314 17y ago

The bragging could also be an attempt to separate the continued success of Apple and the employment of Steve Jobs.

chime 17y ago

What nobody talks about is the impact iPad could have on the data-entry / industrial market. I'm pretty certain that I'll be buying a bunch of the 16GB $499 iPads for my job (pharma manufacturing). Make a simple web-app for collecting data and the iPad replaces paper easier than any other 4x more expensive tablet. No need to setup or install software or custom apps: Safari + default onscreen keyboard works just fine.

bjplink 17y ago
As I was tracking the press conference on the live blogs I had the same thoughts as you did. One of my larger clients is a factory setting using a custom built web app for, among many things, inventory control. When it comes time to do physical hard counts we've been stuck using crappy Dell laptops and pads of legal paper. The 16 gig iPad is perfectly priced and seems more than capable of handling our web app. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for the iPad in industrial/factory settings.
- chime 17y ago
  We did our full physical inventory using MC70s http://www.barcodesinc.com/symbol/mc70.htm http://www.barcodesinc.com/symbol/mc70.htm last month and had absolutely no problems. I bought a total of twelve Wifi MC70s at a cost of $1600 each. I would have absolutely no problem buying 20 iPads if they can replace the mountains of paperwork that need to be filled in manually for every single production run of a pharma product. I would have bought a CrunchPad for $300-ish but I'm willing to pay more for iPad because of the battery life and quality. Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB.
  - jonknee 17y ago
    > Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB. That's going to be tough. Apple controls the 30-pin connector and I haven't heard of any barcode scanners. You're probably better off looking for Bluetooth. Since it supports BT keyboards, you could likely find one that pairs as a keyboard. Won't be cheap, but hey neither were the MC70s.

alex_c 17y ago

they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. Let's not get carried away. It's only fair to make that statement once Apple DOES cram the A4 into an iPhone and blows the competition out of the water. (I'm assuming that's the plan, but until then, the comparison implied by calling it a "mobile CPU" is a bit pointless).

boucher 17y ago
I have no idea how John Gruber could possibly think he has a remotely informed opinion on what constitutes the "best mobile CPU in the world".
- bootload 17y ago
  "... Steve has a reality distortion field.' 'A what?' 'A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.' ..." Gruber needs some grounding against the "Reality Distortion Field" ~ http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Reality_Distortion_Field.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
  - alex_c 17y ago
    I'm a bit surprised though - I've only read Daring Fireball over the past year or so, since I started doing iPhone development, and it's usually pretty rational. I did a double-take when I read this one (and the words "reality distortion field" did cross my mind).
- sh1mmer 17y ago
  He's a blogger.

waterlesscloud 17y ago

I wonder how much the decision not to have multitasking was influenced by the desire to have the ipad look fast?

boucher 17y ago
Probably none. Multi-task, if it comes, will come on the iPhone and iPad at the same time. They either aren't ready to figure out how it fits into the OS model, or they've decided it shouldn't for now.
cubicle67 17y ago
I was wondering if it would work creating a second type of app, a Service, that has no gui and only runs in the background. They'd have an api that allows them to communicate with a regular app. This way, something like Pandora could be split in two, with the background service running constantly, but the gui closing as usual. This make it easier to manage background tasks, and also eliminate the problem of users leaving all their apps running. I guess if the makers of a Service decided to make their api public, other people could develop alternate front ends for it as well.
phil 17y ago
I think Apple has decided they don't like multitasking on its merits. You can only do one thing at a time, so why run more than one application? Instead, they're putting their effort into making application launch and exit very fast, and cautioning developers that they should save all important state, and restore it all next time.
chibea 17y ago
I think so, too. If you think about what is making Android devices run so slow, it's almost always some misbehaving background services. Unless there isn't some smarter way controlling the scheduling of foreground applications, there won't be multitasking and fast speed at the same time with a comparable CPU.

jsz0 17y ago

I think the iPad will be successful but it will have more of an iPod success curve versus an iPhone out-of-the-gate smash hit curve. I believe there are some pieces that aren't in place yet. I think eventually, to hit the magic price point, Apple needs to find a way to subsidize the iPad without a cellular carrier. I suspect that will be in the form of an iTunes subscription program. Shave $100 off the cost to build it and subsidize it by $200 via an $8/month charge built into the subscription program. All you can eat books, movies, music and TV. $199 out the door. That's the point where everyone will want an iPad the same way the iPhone became hugely successful at the same price point. $499 is a very reasonable starting point for now. I think they'll easily sell 3-5 million of them this year. The last thought I have is that Apple's hype machine probably got a little ahead of themselves here. CNN had the iPad release as their Breaking News story for a couple hours today. That's probably a sign that your hype factor was impossibly high. That puts you firmly into backlash territory. I would expect to see another round of features/enhancements/deals shortly before it's release -- probably in conjunction with iPhone OS 4.

jonknee 17y ago
For $199 (clean, no subscription) it might be worth having on the coffee table. I guess I can give it a few revs like I did the iPhone.
olefoo 17y ago
Yeah, this is a 1.0 release And it will get better after a few years of field experience. I think that after the level of hype we saw, it had to be a let down. But, I do think this will be a hit for some unexpected applications. I could see deploying one almost anywhere a stylish but not terribly powerful terminal is needed. A lot of salespeople will be buying these. To most technically inclined people the iPad won't have much appeal beyond being a shiny toy. But to many professional people who are not technically inclined it will be a useful tool that feeds their need to feel in control of technology rather than at the mercy of it.
tjogin 17y ago
Didn't it take until iPhone 3G for the iPhone to really fly off the shelves?

pavs 17y ago

I am a big fan of apple product and I don't wanna be rude to the author, mostly because I don't know much about him. But this post reminds me of a typical obnoxious apple fanboy. "Its not only good, it awesome, super, duper good." Lets not get carried away now. We know almost nothing about the processor. We don't know how it will compare against a similar range intel processor. We don't know how much the ipad OS (which obviously isn't _exactly_ the same as iphone OS) was optimized for this processor. Most importantly we can only speculate about apple's _real_ reason for going into chip making business, it might not be because they have a better product - but in the long run it might be cheaper for them to make their own.

tjmc 17y ago
"Apple fanboy" is kind of the generic term. I think "fawning sycophant" and "groveling lick-spittle" describe Gruber better.
- simonw 17y ago
  http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords
  - tjmc 17y ago
    Well chosen response. Guess I deserve the down mods of the grey t-shirt and commie star brigade!
FraaJad 17y ago
Gruber, the author is the alpha dog of mac fanboys. He sets the tone for the rest of the tribe. He is very good in what he does. What you see may be the remnants of the reality distortion field he was exposed to today ;)
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- dasil003 17y ago

spamizbad 17y ago

The author is way off base carping about the CPU. It's the fastest CPU on a mobile device because it's likely a 3-issue ARM11-derived CPU with out-of-order execution: that means PA Semi (now part of Apple) has designed a chip based on the Cortex A9 or started with an ARM11 and tacked on similar features, like Qualcomm did with the Snapdragon (in the Nexus One) instead of opting for an Cortex A8-derived core. When the Tegra2 and OMAP4 (Cortex-A9 derived ARM CPUs)start shipping in bulk the playing field is going to be leveled: now everyones got access to a 3-issue OOOE ARM11. Only these will (optionally) be multi-core, something Apple probably isn't interested in as it's not doing multitasking.

jodrellblank 17y ago
When XYZ is released the playing field is going to be leveled When manufacturers start taking notice that unresponsive, laggy, slow devices are unpleasant to use, the playing field can start levelling. Until then everyone else is doing a Wintel - hardware many times faster, normal activities just as slow as ever. It's not hardware, it's software that matters, it's design. I've been humming and hawing about whether this will be worth a look given the obvious things to gripe about. I heard on one of the post-announcement streams that the first impressions were roughly "heavier than expected, unbelievably responsive". This quote from DF "if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be “fast”." really pushes me strongly in favour. I'm interested. If nobody else is going to push for responsive software and Apple are, then I'm going to lean more in Apple's direction.
- barrkel 17y ago
  I would rather put it the other way around: one of the most noticeable things about the iPhone / iPod touch is its slowness, the little glitches in the animations where the rendering drops a few frames, the pauses before there's a response to pressing the big button. Wintel very much isn't "slow as ever", in my experience. Desktop machines are another class of hardware altogether; I have 12GB of memory, an SSD, 8 logical cores and 2 monitors on my desktop - nothing slow, laggy or unresponsive about it.
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ecq 17y ago

My wife absolutely loved the iPad so much she wants me to buy her 2. one for her and one for her brother. (and maybe one for me if i'm nice to her) This thing is going to be huge.

dondemarco 17y ago
this is why I'm never getting married :)
pavs 17y ago
>(and maybe one for me if i'm nice to her) Buy yourself a pair of balls too.
- ecq 17y ago
  good advice
- xenophanes 17y ago
  Don't be mean.

derefr 17y ago

> After using the iPhone so much for two and a half years, I’ve become accustomed to web pages rendering (relative to the Mac) slowly. On the iPad, they seem to render nearly instantly. (802.11n Wi-Fi helps too.) ...but the wi-fi doesn't actually help as much as you'd think. If you've ever tethered a 3G iPhone, the speed difference between web browsing on the phone, and web browsing through the phone is palpable; at this point, upgrading cell networks is a bit silly, as every phone in the market is too CPU-limited to render pages as fast as they're pulled down. Getting the A4 into the iPhone would likely be a bigger subjective speed boost than putting 3G in ever was.

bmalicoat 17y ago
Exactly. I doubt adding n over the iPhone's g did much to increase the browser's speed because the iPhone couldn't even consume all of g's throughput.

kingkawn 17y ago

Can we go back to how off this thing's name is?

jodrellblank 17y ago
Sure. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/01/22/canvas http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/01/22/canvas

tlack 17y ago

Wow! I was sure he would finally have something fair, balanced, or even perhaps negative to say about Apple! I am totally shocked that he found some obscure point about the iPad to harp on about rather than mentioning the many obvious negatives.

ubernostrum 17y ago
Yeah, Gruber's never criticized anything Apple's done. For example, he wouldn't dream of criticizing the App Store or its policies the way this guy did ("Rules you don’t know about are scary"? "To act fairly would be to follow the rules. To act capriciously is to be the rules"? Nobody who's been in the Reality Distortion Field would write that!): http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi... http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/wikipedia_app_age_ratings http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/wikipedia_app_age_ratings http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion

jsz0 17y ago

Looking at the big picture the thing that really stands out to me is the iWork demo. The built-in apps were a bit ho-hum because they are very basic applications like most of Apple's other bundled apps on other platforms but the iWork demo... You've got basically a near desktop quality application here. Look at all the new UI widgets, toolbars, drop down font selectors, a general purpose file-insertion tool using media browsers, a windowing system, context sensitive keyboards, etc. I can imagine we're going to see a lot of iPad applications that are near desktop quality. The first generation of powerful multi-touch software. This is where the people saying "it's just a big iPod Touch" are totally missing the point. iPad applications are going to be serious, nearly fully featured, applications.

yankeeracer73 17y ago
Agreed - I thought this was pretty damn impressive. I wonder how they're handling the file system behind the scenes. What will be the interface to save and open files? Some new file manager in itunes? A new hybrid interface pulling in elements of OS X?

jvdh 17y ago

The problem with computers and "feeling fast" though is that it tends to wear off.

chrisbolt 17y ago
Until you use one that doesn't.

fserb 17y ago

"He also said that when you consider MacBooks as “mobile” devices, Apple generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world" hits the bullshit alarm. Well, when you consider BMW cars as "mobile" devices, BMW generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world. C'mon, MacBooks as mobile devices? And only comparing with real mobile-only sales? Also, the tone of the article sounds even a bit religious: "This is something they want us to notice". Looks like one of those apocalypse cults after their expected end-of-the-world day blew off: a bit disappointed but they keep looking for a sign, because there must be one.

Tichy 17y ago

Claiming they have the best CPU after a couple of minutes testing the device as an end user seems way over the top. It's also not likely that the same CPU could simply be put into a phone.

gvb 17y ago
On the contrary, it is extremely likely that the A4 will be in the next iPhone. The CPU architecture is the same (ARM) and the peripherals are the same (video, etc.). It is an Apple ARM-SoC[1] rather than a Samsung/PortalPlayer/TI/whoever ARM-SoC[2]. The functionality is a perfect match, the physical size is likely to be a close match, the speed is much better, and the power efficiency appears to be similar or better (the iPad undoubtedly has a much larger battery). Look at the heritage: PA-Semi created a remarkably fast, remarkably low power PowerPC architecture SoC. They are very, very good. Apple bought them so that they could use that power, speed, and efficiency knowledge to create the A4. Reports are that they used the fast ARM Cortex A9 core and did their magic on the peripheral parts of the SoC. That is exactly what all the other ARM licensees are doing, except the others (arguably) don't have the same talent level as the PA-Semi engineers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip [2] http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumer_electronics/ipod_faq/ipod-processor-type-portal-player-samsung.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumer_electronics/i...

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

>They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing. Anyone else get a chill when reading this?

deleted 17y ago

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stcredzero 17y ago

They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing. In the pre-taped video Apple showed, Bob Mansfield said of the iPad, “No one else could do it.” Only Apple. The Windows XP tablets really were quite impressive after about the 3rd iteration of the software. I have an old tc1100, and it's very nicely designed. Surfing, I must say is a pleasure on the thing. They also had Zinio magazines pacakged with the install. Of course the whole Windows software catalog is quite usable on the thing. But Windows Tablets went the way of the Amiga and a bunch of things by Atari. It's one thing to make great technology. It's another thing to market it. Apple can do both. Or rather, they can do 5 things very well: - Hardware - Software - Human Interface Design - Marketing - User/Developer Ecosystem If they weren't able to do all 5 of these very well, it wouldn't matter how great the devices are. Other companies do the hardware & the software. Some are even pretty good at the marketing. Very few companies do all 5 of these things as well as Apple does. (You can think of the success of both Firefox and Ubuntu as the introduction of good HID polish and Marketing to communities that already had the Software and a good User/Developer ecosystem.)