4 ms·

This is just further proof that people don't really want an iPad, they want a laptop It's not really about hardware. I think what people really want is to

This is just further proof that people don't really want an iPad, they want a laptop It's not really about hardware. I think what people really want is to escape the desktop operating system paradigm. When someone buys an iPad they are escaping the hangover of using Microsoft Windows for two decades. You'll find most iPad owners love their tablet precisely because there is no concept of files and folders, and drivers, and a long bootup process, and hard drives, and defrag utilities, and spyware, and virus protection... None of that stuff really improve users' experience. Ordinary people just want to get onto the internet, play some games, and read facebook. Whether the hardware that lets them do this in an easy way is a tablet, or a laptop form factor is irrelevant.

tehayj 14y ago
Everyone I know complains most about having no file system, but I agree the average mom who looks at her recipe app won't miss it.
- DavidAbrams 14y ago
  Until she wants to send the recipe to her friend. Or move it to some other app after the vendor goes defunct. Or print it. Apologists for the crippled user experience act as though a file system is some kind of arcane "nerdy" or "geeky" facility. It isn't. It's how people organize information. That's why we have file cabinets and recipe boxes. It's also how multiple applications can act on the same files. In iOS we have mobile, handheld Unix computers that are ironically cut off from the outside world on purpose. On those computers we have applications that can't interact with each other or each other's data. This is not progress.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    > Until she wants to send the recipe to her friend. Or move it to some other app after the vendor goes defunct. Or print it. The problem with that is she'll complain about the application being at fault. And maybe it is. After all, sending a recipe to a friend should be easy. And exporting the recipe to some standard format should be available. And printing is something that can happen. None of those complaints can be levied against iOS. Of course, the flip side is also true: the nature of iOS and the App Store means the app developers really are limited by what Apple will allow them to do. I hate reading app reviews that complain about things that aren't the fault of the app, but rather Apple or another 3rd party. In essence, I see a damned if you do, damned if you don't approach.
- moe 14y ago
  The proverbial "average mom" outnumbers the people who even know what a filesystem is by orders of magnitude. This is slowly changing and in 2-3 generations everybody will know what a folder-based filesystem was because it'll be prominently listed on the wikipedia page about broken computing metaphors of the past.
seanica 14y ago
>> When someone buys an iPad they are escaping the hangover of using Microsoft Windows for two decades. ... form factor is irrelevant Form factor is incredibly relevant. For me it's not about escaping from vendor X, or operating system Y, it's about what the form-factor allows me to do. It about having the freedom to chose where I want to sit and _the_posture_ I want to adopt when reading stuff on the internet. Laptops/netbooks got us half-way there (no longer force to sit in a certain location). Their short-coming was you're forced to adopt a certain posture, or put something hard under it so it doesn't overheat (or burn you). However, the ability of a well designed tablet to open another 'ergonomic dimension' does not guarantee that the tablet can maintain all the other ergonomics of other form-factors. Some users realize this and think the fix is to make the new device 'morph' into that other form factor. I suspect that some team of people will realize that it can be achieved some other way that is simpler and sexier and make a mint from their idea. It will involve a revolution in input device hardware (and acceptance of that hardware) to get there though.

tehayj 14y ago

Everyone I know complains most about having no file system, but I agree the average mom who looks at her recipe app won't miss it.

DavidAbrams 14y ago
Until she wants to send the recipe to her friend. Or move it to some other app after the vendor goes defunct. Or print it. Apologists for the crippled user experience act as though a file system is some kind of arcane "nerdy" or "geeky" facility. It isn't. It's how people organize information. That's why we have file cabinets and recipe boxes. It's also how multiple applications can act on the same files. In iOS we have mobile, handheld Unix computers that are ironically cut off from the outside world on purpose. On those computers we have applications that can't interact with each other or each other's data. This is not progress.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  > Until she wants to send the recipe to her friend. Or move it to some other app after the vendor goes defunct. Or print it. The problem with that is she'll complain about the application being at fault. And maybe it is. After all, sending a recipe to a friend should be easy. And exporting the recipe to some standard format should be available. And printing is something that can happen. None of those complaints can be levied against iOS. Of course, the flip side is also true: the nature of iOS and the App Store means the app developers really are limited by what Apple will allow them to do. I hate reading app reviews that complain about things that aren't the fault of the app, but rather Apple or another 3rd party. In essence, I see a damned if you do, damned if you don't approach.
moe 14y ago
The proverbial "average mom" outnumbers the people who even know what a filesystem is by orders of magnitude. This is slowly changing and in 2-3 generations everybody will know what a folder-based filesystem was because it'll be prominently listed on the wikipedia page about broken computing metaphors of the past.

seanica 14y ago

>> When someone buys an iPad they are escaping the hangover of using Microsoft Windows for two decades. ... form factor is irrelevant Form factor is incredibly relevant. For me it's not about escaping from vendor X, or operating system Y, it's about what the form-factor allows me to do. It about having the freedom to chose where I want to sit and _the_posture_ I want to adopt when reading stuff on the internet. Laptops/netbooks got us half-way there (no longer force to sit in a certain location). Their short-coming was you're forced to adopt a certain posture, or put something hard under it so it doesn't overheat (or burn you). However, the ability of a well designed tablet to open another 'ergonomic dimension' does not guarantee that the tablet can maintain all the other ergonomics of other form-factors. Some users realize this and think the fix is to make the new device 'morph' into that other form factor. I suspect that some team of people will realize that it can be achieved some other way that is simpler and sexier and make a mint from their idea. It will involve a revolution in input device hardware (and acceptance of that hardware) to get there though.