8 ms·

Is the iPad for dumb people?

51 points by dkasper 17y ago

dmn 17y ago
Probably the first post that has legitimately made me interested in what a Mac may have to offer. That said, the ergonomics of the iPad look haphazard to me.
- drcode 17y ago
  I actually just bought a Mac two days ago for the first time (to do iPad development :-). I had always resisted because I thought "Windows and Linux were such an effort to learn, why would I want to learn another OS?" Suffice to say, I haven't spent a second so far trying to figure something out in OSX that wasn't immediately obvious. Part of this is because I already have a background in other OSes, part of it is because it really is cleanly designed. Bottom line, if you're a hacker and have been avoiding Macs because of the effort of learning another OS, I can tell you it'll be a piece of cake for you- Take the leap.
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "if you're a hacker and have been avoiding Macs because of the effort of learning another OS .." I doubt that the hackers who avoid OSX do so because they have to make an effort to learn a new OS!
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    I switched about four years ago because my employer issued me a MacBook Pro; for the previous six years I'd been using Linux full-time as my desktop OS. It took... well, hardly any time at all to get used to it. Admittedly, I still spend most of my time in Terminal and a lot of what I knew transferred immediately (minus the quirks of going from GNU tools to BSD), but even in the GUI parts of the OS there wasn't anything that really surprised me. And once I'd learned the standard keyboard shortcuts I was rather pleased with how completely consistent even third-party applications are about implementing them (a situation which didn't, at the time, exist with most of the GNOME apps I'd been using).
    - jdietrich 17y ago
      I had the same experience, switching from Debian to a Mac. The only moments of confusion I had on switching were things that were too intuitive. Coming from a Linux background and remembering dependency hell, I couldn't quite get my head around the idea that to install an application you just drag and drop it into the application folder. As soon as I stopped trying to second-guess the system and just did what I thought would be the obvious thing, everything became obvious! Of course the terminal just feels like home, OSX is a proper *nix and everything works as you'd expect it to. The big difference is that everything else works as you'd expect it too as well. It seems like some sort of dream that I used to spend a whole week setting up a new computer, fiddling with drivers and dependency problems and xorg.conf nonsense.
      - pyre 17y ago
        Don't espouse the platform too much. Maybe it's stable now, but there were plenty of issues early on. I got a Mac around the release of MacOS 10.2. If you mounted an NFS or Samba share the filesystem driver would 'beachball' the entire operating system if the server ever became unresponsive. There were numerous times where the smbfs driver caused kernel panics too. The only improvement to this offered in 10.3 was a dialog that would popup asking if you wanted to disconnect the share whenever it deemed that the server was unresponsive. Though the 'timeout' that it was using to display this dialog was too conservative. Sometimes it would popup just to disappear right away when it finally get a server response. [Note: these shares were mounted over a LAN, not spanning across the internet or something] The issue hurt me the most when I left a share mounted at home when I closed my PowerBook, only to wakeup the PowerBook at school/work and have OSX require a forced restart because the server was no longer there. {edit} I know that all platforms have issues, I just get annoyed when people act like they don't.
ilamont 17y ago
Agree with the author, but not yet willing to substitute it for my iPod touch (which fits into my pocket) or my laptop (which I believe is better for entering text, which is still my primary means of communication and work on the Web). Curious to see what kind of apps and interfaces are built for the platform in the years to come. That could make me change my mind for future versions.
- PStamatiou 17y ago
  It's not a substitute - It's another device with different use cases. Reminds me of the part of the Stevenote where he was talking about the iPhone and MacBook and then talked about where the iPad fit in. For me it's for casual couch/bedside computing. I always tinker around with my iPhone, read HN, etc before going to bed, so the iPad would fit in perfectly there for me. (P.S. - hey ian!)
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    It's not a substitute - It's another device with different use cases. Most people have a resistance to having to own too many devices though. If the iPad doesn't get at least one killer app that really doesn't work as well on an iPhone or a laptop, then it won't go anywhere.
  - ilamont 17y ago
    Hey Paul! I can see some new use cases, but the fact that Apple has made this compatible with most iPhone/iPod apps tells me there will be a lot of overlap. In my own case, I use my iTouch for couchtop browsing (and sometimes light email and Twitter) so the iPad doesn't hold as much of an attraction right now. If there's some other killer app(s) that come to the platform, I may change my mind.
    - pchristensen 17y ago
      I don't know, I use my iTouch around the house a ton for browsing/twitter because it's easier than whipping out a laptop, but something that was a) much faster and b) had easier text input would get used a lot more for both of those things. Even if all the iPad did was instant on, fast rendering of web pages, and reasonable two-hand typing, it would be a game-changing experience. Sure there's the RDF, but I believe it really will be the best web browsing experience, just like iPhone was the best mobile browsing experience.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
well sure. you can always phrase making something more accessible as "for dumb people". I doubt this kind of dim view of your customer base is highly correlated with successful business though.
- drcode 17y ago
  you clearly didn't RTFA.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    yeah, i read the whole thing. I'm not phrasing the post as if it was a response to the author. i agree with him.
z_ 17y ago
This is the first posting I've agreed with on the iPad however my issue is that the title is misleading. A better title would be,"The iPad is for people who know what they want." It doesn't multitask. It doesn't let you install whatever you want. It doesn't do 1080p. It will potentially deliver a browsing, music and video experience that is good enough at 1.6lbs. Of course this isn't everything, there is the crucial fact that it doesn't matter if you hate or love it, or if you are some world class tech blogger. People buy stuff they want.
- dasil003 17y ago
  The original title is definitely linkbait, but I disagree with your better title. The iPad may be for geeks who know what they want, but it's also for "the rest of us". I can think of so many family and friends who are still scared of computers and have only tepidly started using email and Facebook. The iPad will be an amazing device for all these people who still don't feel comfortable with computers after more than a decade of mainstream exposure.
fnid2 17y ago
it's just the beta version people! Eventually, it'll have a camera and multi-tasking. For crying out loud! In a forum full of entrepreneurs, it seems no one has any empathy for a company releasing a new product without all the bells and whistles. There's a huge amount of hypocrisy here from a group that espouses "Release early, release often."
- ynniv 17y ago
  I would be even more critical of the HN crowd nay-saying the device. Its too soon to tell, but I think that Apple may have made Something That People Want. To say that it sucks because the highly specialized group people that we belong to thinks that it is "wrong" is to miss the point of entrepreneurship entirely. And really, any time that you say "I won't use one... but I might get one for my Mom" should set off The Bells And Whistles On High.
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    And really, any time that you say "I won't use one... but I might get one for my Mom" should set off The Bells And Whistles On High. I think that's a little unfair. I would characterize most of the negative responses I've seen on HN as more like "I won't use one... if it had a camera at least I could get one for my Mom to use Skype on... maybe rev 2 will be better".
- gamble 17y ago
  One can hope. The Apple TV is an obvious counter-example. Despite being on the market for nearly three years, Apple hardly updates it and has yet to add any truly compelling features like divx/xvid support or DVR functionality despite obvious demand. The iPad may not suffer the same fate, if only because Apple seems more concerned about its success at the moment. I'll need to wait for iPhone OS 4.0 before making a call. Honestly, there's rarely been a modern Apple product that demanded waiting for the second generation more than the iPad.
  - jdietrich 17y ago
    Maybe it's hindsight, but the Apple TV seems more like a peripheral than a platform - the Airport Express streams music and the Apple TV streams video. I don't think it was ever intended to be a big hit, but an Applishly elegant solution to a specific problem. Viewed from that perspective, it wasn't really a failure - they sold plenty of units and have many happy customers. The fanboys may be let down that it didn't revolutionise television, but I don't think Apple had any such aspirations for the device. I think the same gap in expectations applies to the iPad - we were expecting a conventional tablet and Apple delivered something that was tailored to a smaller, more specific set of tasks. Although as geeks we naturally prefer devices with lots of functionality, Apple prefer to deliver something that does one thing well. My mind is naturally drawn back to the Slashdot thread on the iPod - people criticised the lack of features, but the iPod came to dominate the market because it did one thing better than anything else could.
J3L2404 17y ago
Is the iPad for dumb people? Are automatic transmissions for dumb drivers? No, but you'll wish you had one in city traffic. That said, I'm glad I can drive a stick - even though I no longer own one.
- moron4hire 17y ago
  I have a manual in a 200hp compact sports car. Driving around downtown Philadelphia doesn't bother me at all.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  I only drive manual transmissions, and I live in San Francisco - plenty of city traffic. The problem for me is that, if you know how to drive a manual well, you can't help noticing all the mistakes most automatics make (shifting at the wrong time, or into the wrong gear). Most Apple products aren't like this. I ran nothing but Linux for nearly 10 years, but when I bought my first Powerbook, nearly everything was actually significantly better.
  - xenophanes 17y ago
    Apple's design philosophy for OS X and iPhone OS is different. OS X is not comparable to automatic transmission, it's a full *nix that lets you shoot yourself in the foot plenty of ways. iPhone OS is a different style.
  - SMrF 17y ago
    And when you switch from your Linux tablet to an Apple tablet that experience will be significantly better. Your metaphor breaks down because there is no other tablet (worth talking about).
- frossie 17y ago
  The analogy with manual/automatic transmissions is quite interesting. There are some terrains/situations where a manual transmission is far superior to an automatic, but the majority of people will never experience them. So, the convenience of the automatic works great for most people. The question I have with tablet computing is this: my computer usage is extremely multi-tasking - I have actually tried to pay some attention to this recently. I'll put the pasta to boil or something, and then I will hit the computer for 8 minutes. During those 8 minutes I might contribute to a few IM sessions, set off 4 or 5 tabs loading with the top HN stories and scan them, check my RSS feeds, check personal and work email and reply to anything that can be dealt quickly, check the state of my gentoo compile, tag some photos in digikam and set an upload to smugmug, and look up a recipe for tomorrow's dinner. The only reason I can do all that in 8 minutes is by aggressive keyboard shortcuts and desktop-switching. I do have an iPhone and I do really like it, but it's not a multi-tasking device - not due to the OS, but due to the UI. So the real question is - how rare am I in my computer usage? Am I analogous to the rare driver that tackles unpaved mountain roads, and so need my niche manual transmission while the rest of the world is happy with their automatics? Is the multi-tasking a geek thing, or do "regular" people do this?
dacracot 17y ago
Less is more.
- JBiserkov 17y ago
  Less is less
  - protomyth 17y ago
    a focused well thought out less is better then an ill thought out more (ultimate example: the marquee and blink tags in Netscape)
pyre 17y ago
> Apple didn't set out to create a tablet as other companies had in the past, the same way they didn't set out to create a phone the same way every other company had in the past. They set out to fundamentally change the way we interact with our computers. Most 'smartphone' prior to the iPhone did much the same thing, they just failed at it. Please don't act like Apple is the lone-wolf when it comes to 'trying new things.' They are just good at creating successful new things. > Apple didn't set out to create a tablet as other companies had in the past This part irks me most. Apple just created a larger iPhone. That's it. Sure they added features like iWork, but things like iWork just didn't make sense on the smaller form-factor of the iPhone. That's it. Sure they had a different approach to the problem (making a larger iPhone rather than making a smaller touchscreen desktop/laptop), but it's not like they created a new experience with the iPad. The iPad is just the iPhone experience with a larger screen and some extra apps.
- protomyth 17y ago
  > This part irks me most. Apple just created a larger iPhone. Actually, this meme is irking me. Look at the interface on the iPad, it is not just a big iPhone interface. It has its own unique elements that allow it to work. There is real thought going into this.
  - masterj 17y ago
    >The iPad is just the iPhone experience with a larger screen and some extra apps. I think this will be important. It's an enrichment of the iPhone experience instead of a denigration of the laptop experience. A user comes to it familiar with an iPhone and finds it faster, more useful, etc. A user comes to a netbook and feels cramped because it's worse than what it's imitating.
    - pyre 17y ago
      On the other hand, what about someone that goes from a laptop/desktop to an iPad without the iPhone step?
zmonteca 17y ago
I want my iPad. I dont want to labor to use my computer. I couldn't agree more. My progression was very similar: WIN->LIN->MAC4EVER. I simply became exhausted with fighting with the registry, viruses and reinstalls. I just want my computer and OS to work so I can be productive in other areas while i'm on my computer.
grannyg00se 17y ago
It's not about intelligence. It's about willingness to compromise. I personally don't like the compromise that the iPad offers over a TabletPC. However I do like the compromise that the QUE reader provides. It does only one thing, but does it extremely well. The iPad tries to do more, but isn't great at anything and can't be modified to do more.
nearestneighbor 17y ago
I think it's dumb to have to hold your screen with one or both hands for an extended period of time.
- protomyth 17y ago
  buy a dock
jsz0 17y ago
I view technology in a compartmentalized way. I'm always going to want a powerful desktop that has endless flexibility but I also want something simple that always works well. I don't really care if I can't run BitTorrent on my iPad. I can do that on my desktop.
kscaldef 17y ago
"It was during this time that I stopped worrying about the details of my computer and worried more about what I could accomplish with it: browsing the web, listening to music, doing email, and writing papers." This is really the division. Not between smart people and dumb people, but between people for whom what they can (or want to) accomplish with a computer boils down to a list like that and the people whose computer-aided ambitions are larger. This is what Tim Bray and others mean when they say "For creative people, this device is nothing".
bitwize 17y ago
The iPad is for people who can't be arsed to deal with the cognitive load of a full-blown computer. Which, depending on the circumstances, is just about everybody. There's a reason why the best programmers are switching en masse from Linux to Mac on their desktops[0]. Mac OS X is a no-compromises Unix: the power and flexibility of Unix when you need it, but when you don't it imposes virtually zero cognitive load. Turn it on, it just works. Even the geekiest hacker ever is going to run into times when they just want to read or surf, and not even have to deal with the interference of a keyboard. For those times, the iPad is perfect. [0]Actually two reasons, the other being that they stand to make money developing Mac desktop software. Linux? Not a chance...
lukifer 17y ago
People aren't dumb just because they aren't passionate about the same things you are. Lots of smart people drive cars without giving a crap about how they work. Most people don't want computers; they want information appliances that work reliably.
lacrossegm 17y ago
"The iPad isn't for dumb people, it is for people who don't want to think about their computer anymore." These devices will eventually just become extensions of our ourselves as with other tools. The Samurai didn't need to think about the inter-workings of his sword to make mincemeat of his enemies in battle. Through training, the sword becomes a natural extension of one's self. Why should our hand held computers be any different?
Soto 17y ago
Okay but a bunch of these comments are very narrow minded and look like typical windows users comments. If people think that the mac os is for simple minded people because it is easy to use and doing things the long way or more in depth way is for smrter people... Then throw away your calculators and break out your abacus. Stop hating
Soto 17y ago
Okay but a bunch of these comments are very narrow minded and look like typical windows users comments. If people think that the mac os is for simple minded people because it is easy to use and doing things the long way or more in depth way is for smrter people... Then throw away your calculators and break out your abacus. Stop hating
protomyth 17y ago
thought experiment: walk around your workplace and see how many non-developers work in windows with all their windows maximized

51 points by dkasper 17y ago

dmn 17y ago

Probably the first post that has legitimately made me interested in what a Mac may have to offer. That said, the ergonomics of the iPad look haphazard to me.

drcode 17y ago
I actually just bought a Mac two days ago for the first time (to do iPad development :-). I had always resisted because I thought "Windows and Linux were such an effort to learn, why would I want to learn another OS?" Suffice to say, I haven't spent a second so far trying to figure something out in OSX that wasn't immediately obvious. Part of this is because I already have a background in other OSes, part of it is because it really is cleanly designed. Bottom line, if you're a hacker and have been avoiding Macs because of the effort of learning another OS, I can tell you it'll be a piece of cake for you- Take the leap.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "if you're a hacker and have been avoiding Macs because of the effort of learning another OS .." I doubt that the hackers who avoid OSX do so because they have to make an effort to learn a new OS!
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  I switched about four years ago because my employer issued me a MacBook Pro; for the previous six years I'd been using Linux full-time as my desktop OS. It took... well, hardly any time at all to get used to it. Admittedly, I still spend most of my time in Terminal and a lot of what I knew transferred immediately (minus the quirks of going from GNU tools to BSD), but even in the GUI parts of the OS there wasn't anything that really surprised me. And once I'd learned the standard keyboard shortcuts I was rather pleased with how completely consistent even third-party applications are about implementing them (a situation which didn't, at the time, exist with most of the GNOME apps I'd been using).
  - jdietrich 17y ago
    I had the same experience, switching from Debian to a Mac. The only moments of confusion I had on switching were things that were too intuitive. Coming from a Linux background and remembering dependency hell, I couldn't quite get my head around the idea that to install an application you just drag and drop it into the application folder. As soon as I stopped trying to second-guess the system and just did what I thought would be the obvious thing, everything became obvious! Of course the terminal just feels like home, OSX is a proper *nix and everything works as you'd expect it to. The big difference is that everything else works as you'd expect it too as well. It seems like some sort of dream that I used to spend a whole week setting up a new computer, fiddling with drivers and dependency problems and xorg.conf nonsense.
    - pyre 17y ago
      Don't espouse the platform too much. Maybe it's stable now, but there were plenty of issues early on. I got a Mac around the release of MacOS 10.2. If you mounted an NFS or Samba share the filesystem driver would 'beachball' the entire operating system if the server ever became unresponsive. There were numerous times where the smbfs driver caused kernel panics too. The only improvement to this offered in 10.3 was a dialog that would popup asking if you wanted to disconnect the share whenever it deemed that the server was unresponsive. Though the 'timeout' that it was using to display this dialog was too conservative. Sometimes it would popup just to disappear right away when it finally get a server response. [Note: these shares were mounted over a LAN, not spanning across the internet or something] The issue hurt me the most when I left a share mounted at home when I closed my PowerBook, only to wakeup the PowerBook at school/work and have OSX require a forced restart because the server was no longer there. {edit} I know that all platforms have issues, I just get annoyed when people act like they don't.

ilamont 17y ago

Agree with the author, but not yet willing to substitute it for my iPod touch (which fits into my pocket) or my laptop (which I believe is better for entering text, which is still my primary means of communication and work on the Web). Curious to see what kind of apps and interfaces are built for the platform in the years to come. That could make me change my mind for future versions.

PStamatiou 17y ago
It's not a substitute - It's another device with different use cases. Reminds me of the part of the Stevenote where he was talking about the iPhone and MacBook and then talked about where the iPad fit in. For me it's for casual couch/bedside computing. I always tinker around with my iPhone, read HN, etc before going to bed, so the iPad would fit in perfectly there for me. (P.S. - hey ian!)
- abstractbill 17y ago
  It's not a substitute - It's another device with different use cases. Most people have a resistance to having to own too many devices though. If the iPad doesn't get at least one killer app that really doesn't work as well on an iPhone or a laptop, then it won't go anywhere.
- ilamont 17y ago
  Hey Paul! I can see some new use cases, but the fact that Apple has made this compatible with most iPhone/iPod apps tells me there will be a lot of overlap. In my own case, I use my iTouch for couchtop browsing (and sometimes light email and Twitter) so the iPad doesn't hold as much of an attraction right now. If there's some other killer app(s) that come to the platform, I may change my mind.
  - pchristensen 17y ago
    I don't know, I use my iTouch around the house a ton for browsing/twitter because it's easier than whipping out a laptop, but something that was a) much faster and b) had easier text input would get used a lot more for both of those things. Even if all the iPad did was instant on, fast rendering of web pages, and reasonable two-hand typing, it would be a game-changing experience. Sure there's the RDF, but I believe it really will be the best web browsing experience, just like iPhone was the best mobile browsing experience.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

well sure. you can always phrase making something more accessible as "for dumb people". I doubt this kind of dim view of your customer base is highly correlated with successful business though.

drcode 17y ago
you clearly didn't RTFA.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  yeah, i read the whole thing. I'm not phrasing the post as if it was a response to the author. i agree with him.

z_ 17y ago

This is the first posting I've agreed with on the iPad however my issue is that the title is misleading. A better title would be,"The iPad is for people who know what they want." It doesn't multitask. It doesn't let you install whatever you want. It doesn't do 1080p. It will potentially deliver a browsing, music and video experience that is good enough at 1.6lbs. Of course this isn't everything, there is the crucial fact that it doesn't matter if you hate or love it, or if you are some world class tech blogger. People buy stuff they want.

dasil003 17y ago
The original title is definitely linkbait, but I disagree with your better title. The iPad may be for geeks who know what they want, but it's also for "the rest of us". I can think of so many family and friends who are still scared of computers and have only tepidly started using email and Facebook. The iPad will be an amazing device for all these people who still don't feel comfortable with computers after more than a decade of mainstream exposure.

fnid2 17y ago

it's just the beta version people! Eventually, it'll have a camera and multi-tasking. For crying out loud! In a forum full of entrepreneurs, it seems no one has any empathy for a company releasing a new product without all the bells and whistles. There's a huge amount of hypocrisy here from a group that espouses "Release early, release often."

ynniv 17y ago
I would be even more critical of the HN crowd nay-saying the device. Its too soon to tell, but I think that Apple may have made Something That People Want. To say that it sucks because the highly specialized group people that we belong to thinks that it is "wrong" is to miss the point of entrepreneurship entirely. And really, any time that you say "I won't use one... but I might get one for my Mom" should set off The Bells And Whistles On High.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  And really, any time that you say "I won't use one... but I might get one for my Mom" should set off The Bells And Whistles On High. I think that's a little unfair. I would characterize most of the negative responses I've seen on HN as more like "I won't use one... if it had a camera at least I could get one for my Mom to use Skype on... maybe rev 2 will be better".
gamble 17y ago
One can hope. The Apple TV is an obvious counter-example. Despite being on the market for nearly three years, Apple hardly updates it and has yet to add any truly compelling features like divx/xvid support or DVR functionality despite obvious demand. The iPad may not suffer the same fate, if only because Apple seems more concerned about its success at the moment. I'll need to wait for iPhone OS 4.0 before making a call. Honestly, there's rarely been a modern Apple product that demanded waiting for the second generation more than the iPad.
- jdietrich 17y ago
  Maybe it's hindsight, but the Apple TV seems more like a peripheral than a platform - the Airport Express streams music and the Apple TV streams video. I don't think it was ever intended to be a big hit, but an Applishly elegant solution to a specific problem. Viewed from that perspective, it wasn't really a failure - they sold plenty of units and have many happy customers. The fanboys may be let down that it didn't revolutionise television, but I don't think Apple had any such aspirations for the device. I think the same gap in expectations applies to the iPad - we were expecting a conventional tablet and Apple delivered something that was tailored to a smaller, more specific set of tasks. Although as geeks we naturally prefer devices with lots of functionality, Apple prefer to deliver something that does one thing well. My mind is naturally drawn back to the Slashdot thread on the iPod - people criticised the lack of features, but the iPod came to dominate the market because it did one thing better than anything else could.

J3L2404 17y ago

Is the iPad for dumb people? Are automatic transmissions for dumb drivers? No, but you'll wish you had one in city traffic. That said, I'm glad I can drive a stick - even though I no longer own one.

moron4hire 17y ago
I have a manual in a 200hp compact sports car. Driving around downtown Philadelphia doesn't bother me at all.
abstractbill 17y ago
I only drive manual transmissions, and I live in San Francisco - plenty of city traffic. The problem for me is that, if you know how to drive a manual well, you can't help noticing all the mistakes most automatics make (shifting at the wrong time, or into the wrong gear). Most Apple products aren't like this. I ran nothing but Linux for nearly 10 years, but when I bought my first Powerbook, nearly everything was actually significantly better.
- xenophanes 17y ago
  Apple's design philosophy for OS X and iPhone OS is different. OS X is not comparable to automatic transmission, it's a full *nix that lets you shoot yourself in the foot plenty of ways. iPhone OS is a different style.
- SMrF 17y ago
  And when you switch from your Linux tablet to an Apple tablet that experience will be significantly better. Your metaphor breaks down because there is no other tablet (worth talking about).
frossie 17y ago
The analogy with manual/automatic transmissions is quite interesting. There are some terrains/situations where a manual transmission is far superior to an automatic, but the majority of people will never experience them. So, the convenience of the automatic works great for most people. The question I have with tablet computing is this: my computer usage is extremely multi-tasking - I have actually tried to pay some attention to this recently. I'll put the pasta to boil or something, and then I will hit the computer for 8 minutes. During those 8 minutes I might contribute to a few IM sessions, set off 4 or 5 tabs loading with the top HN stories and scan them, check my RSS feeds, check personal and work email and reply to anything that can be dealt quickly, check the state of my gentoo compile, tag some photos in digikam and set an upload to smugmug, and look up a recipe for tomorrow's dinner. The only reason I can do all that in 8 minutes is by aggressive keyboard shortcuts and desktop-switching. I do have an iPhone and I do really like it, but it's not a multi-tasking device - not due to the OS, but due to the UI. So the real question is - how rare am I in my computer usage? Am I analogous to the rare driver that tackles unpaved mountain roads, and so need my niche manual transmission while the rest of the world is happy with their automatics? Is the multi-tasking a geek thing, or do "regular" people do this?

dacracot 17y ago

Less is more.

JBiserkov 17y ago
Less is less
- protomyth 17y ago
  a focused well thought out less is better then an ill thought out more (ultimate example: the marquee and blink tags in Netscape)

pyre 17y ago

> Apple didn't set out to create a tablet as other companies had in the past, the same way they didn't set out to create a phone the same way every other company had in the past. They set out to fundamentally change the way we interact with our computers. Most 'smartphone' prior to the iPhone did much the same thing, they just failed at it. Please don't act like Apple is the lone-wolf when it comes to 'trying new things.' They are just good at creating successful new things. > Apple didn't set out to create a tablet as other companies had in the past This part irks me most. Apple just created a larger iPhone. That's it. Sure they added features like iWork, but things like iWork just didn't make sense on the smaller form-factor of the iPhone. That's it. Sure they had a different approach to the problem (making a larger iPhone rather than making a smaller touchscreen desktop/laptop), but it's not like they created a new experience with the iPad. The iPad is just the iPhone experience with a larger screen and some extra apps.

protomyth 17y ago
> This part irks me most. Apple just created a larger iPhone. Actually, this meme is irking me. Look at the interface on the iPad, it is not just a big iPhone interface. It has its own unique elements that allow it to work. There is real thought going into this.
- masterj 17y ago
  >The iPad is just the iPhone experience with a larger screen and some extra apps. I think this will be important. It's an enrichment of the iPhone experience instead of a denigration of the laptop experience. A user comes to it familiar with an iPhone and finds it faster, more useful, etc. A user comes to a netbook and feels cramped because it's worse than what it's imitating.
  - pyre 17y ago
    On the other hand, what about someone that goes from a laptop/desktop to an iPad without the iPhone step?

zmonteca 17y ago

I want my iPad. I dont want to labor to use my computer. I couldn't agree more. My progression was very similar: WIN->LIN->MAC4EVER. I simply became exhausted with fighting with the registry, viruses and reinstalls. I just want my computer and OS to work so I can be productive in other areas while i'm on my computer.

grannyg00se 17y ago

It's not about intelligence. It's about willingness to compromise. I personally don't like the compromise that the iPad offers over a TabletPC. However I do like the compromise that the QUE reader provides. It does only one thing, but does it extremely well. The iPad tries to do more, but isn't great at anything and can't be modified to do more.

nearestneighbor 17y ago

I think it's dumb to have to hold your screen with one or both hands for an extended period of time.

protomyth 17y ago
buy a dock

jsz0 17y ago

I view technology in a compartmentalized way. I'm always going to want a powerful desktop that has endless flexibility but I also want something simple that always works well. I don't really care if I can't run BitTorrent on my iPad. I can do that on my desktop.

kscaldef 17y ago

"It was during this time that I stopped worrying about the details of my computer and worried more about what I could accomplish with it: browsing the web, listening to music, doing email, and writing papers." This is really the division. Not between smart people and dumb people, but between people for whom what they can (or want to) accomplish with a computer boils down to a list like that and the people whose computer-aided ambitions are larger. This is what Tim Bray and others mean when they say "For creative people, this device is nothing".

bitwize 17y ago

The iPad is for people who can't be arsed to deal with the cognitive load of a full-blown computer. Which, depending on the circumstances, is just about everybody. There's a reason why the best programmers are switching en masse from Linux to Mac on their desktops[0]. Mac OS X is a no-compromises Unix: the power and flexibility of Unix when you need it, but when you don't it imposes virtually zero cognitive load. Turn it on, it just works. Even the geekiest hacker ever is going to run into times when they just want to read or surf, and not even have to deal with the interference of a keyboard. For those times, the iPad is perfect. [0]Actually two reasons, the other being that they stand to make money developing Mac desktop software. Linux? Not a chance...

lukifer 17y ago

People aren't dumb just because they aren't passionate about the same things you are. Lots of smart people drive cars without giving a crap about how they work. Most people don't want computers; they want information appliances that work reliably.

lacrossegm 17y ago

"The iPad isn't for dumb people, it is for people who don't want to think about their computer anymore." These devices will eventually just become extensions of our ourselves as with other tools. The Samurai didn't need to think about the inter-workings of his sword to make mincemeat of his enemies in battle. Through training, the sword becomes a natural extension of one's self. Why should our hand held computers be any different?

Soto 17y ago

Okay but a bunch of these comments are very narrow minded and look like typical windows users comments. If people think that the mac os is for simple minded people because it is easy to use and doing things the long way or more in depth way is for smrter people... Then throw away your calculators and break out your abacus. Stop hating

Soto 17y ago

protomyth 17y ago

thought experiment: walk around your workplace and see how many non-developers work in windows with all their windows maximized