Apple Unveils the iPad Discussion

[Drillbit]

How is this thing any better than a cheaper netbook?

Simple.

ARM vs. Intel.

None of the Intel chips could save power like any ARM chip does. Every netbook has to be thicker, weigh more, carry more batteries. Oh and my experience with netbook batteries, Acer, is they also have eventually shorter use life. After so many charges and so on...

Smartphone OS vs. Desktop OS in terms of battery life.

Smartphone OS have processes that are designed to run with minimal resources, hence less electrical consumption when they run, as compared to desktop OS. When idling they also take up far less power and when activated to react to an event, are also a lot more quicker, because by nature, they are also Real Time OS.

If a desktop OS is suspended into an idle state, then switched back to operate again, the whole process is slower than with a smart OS which can react instantly. There are even times the entire switch from idle to working may also fail. Hence most Windows netbooks are always turned off. You can't compare the entire boot process time of a Windows XP or even Windows 7 netbook to the instant the OS becomes available on an iPod Touch the moment you press the button.

Furthermore, netbooks are now mostly using physical hard drives. That's another battery eater due to their mechanical movement. They are also inherently more fragile than flash memory. Not too many flash only netbooks with Linux, but these types of netbooks---flash only, running Jolicloud, ChromeOS, or Ubuntu---are the ones closest to MIDs with smartphone OS in terms of boot up response.

Desktop OS, all have memory footprints that are measured by multiple gigabytes. Hence hard drives. On the other hand, a smartphone type OS, can be packed within a quarter of a gigabyte.

A netbook---unless its one of those flash Linux types---is not what I call true solid state computing. SSC means a computing device with no moving parts.

Smartphone OS vs. Desktop Os in terms of interface.

A smartphone OS is optimized for touch, with controls intended for such. Desktop OS isn't. They're never as responsive, often have menus and controls that are not touch friendly.

A "smart" architecture---bred from a smartphone OS---is designed to be memory, energy and touch efficient from scratch, where as a PC OS being moved to a tablet form carries too much legacy baggage to be efficient in that regard. Hence why Windows based tablets always fail in the market.

Yes, ARM is PDA architecture. It was Apple and the Newton that brought ARM into PDAs by requesting a specialized version of that RISC. The rest is history. And now the entire architecture is moving into Intel space.

[Drillbit]

Lets do another conceptual comparison between this and the iTouch. Why does having this justifies over an iTouch?

The iTouch is smaller, and more pocketable. But there is a disadvantage in screen size. A notably significant portion of the market will not eread, nor web browse on a mobile device because they deem the screen too small. Despite the so called mobile web revolution.

On the other hand, even a netbook is heavy, bulky and clumsy for ereading. Gets too warm on the lap too. The lack of a touch screen isn't very intuitive either.

When your screen size is small, with a touch screen, your multiple gesture support is also limited. The next trend in OS design is heading away from the traditional mouse-windows paradigm to multi-touch and gesture. A touch tablet opens more possibilities of such compared to a smartphone, which we have been noticing, gradually growing bigger screens. Lets just assume, Apple is looking on the long term direction that may include touchscreen Macs.

What's driving increased screen sizes has been the mobile web, ereading and gaming. Yet, they want the mobility of pure solid state devices, which Windows netbooks don't offer.

[neuron]

Lets do another conceptual comparison between this and the iTouch. Why does having this justifies over an iTouch?

The iTouch is smaller, and more pocketable. But there is a disadvantage in screen size. A notably significant portion of the market will not eread, nor web browse on a mobile device because they deem the screen too small. Despite the so called mobile web revolution.

On the other hand, even a netbook is heavy, bulky and clumsy for ereading. Gets too warm on the lap too. The lack of a touch screen isn't very intuitive either.

When your screen size is small, with a touch screen, your multiple gesture support is also limited. The next trend in OS design is heading away from the traditional mouse-windows paradigm to multi-touch and gesture. A touch tablet opens more possibilities of such compared to a smartphone, which we have been noticing, gradually growing bigger screens. Lets just assume, Apple is looking on the long term direction that may include touchscreen Macs.

What's driving increased screen sizes has been the mobile web, ereading and gaming. Yet, they want the mobility of pure solid state devices, which Windows netbooks don't offer.

What you are arguing is iPAD is an ereader, instead of a PC.

What matters most for a book reader are battery life and eye comfortablity and Kindle wins both, comparing with an iPAD.

iPAD would have a bright future at current price if it had a full-featured OS, either MacOS or windows 7.

[Drillbit]

Like I said, every Windows tablet has been a fail. Whatever happened to the Windows 7 HP tablet Ballmer presented early this month on CES? Snore, forgotten. Funny how HP also had Android tablet too.

[neuron]

Like I said, every Windows tablet has been a fail. Whatever happened to the Windows 7 HP tablet Ballmer presented early this month on CES? Snore, forgotten. Funny how HP also had Android tablet too.

No, they all failed in price, not tablet itself. Dropped those PC slates to $499, they will be sold like hot cakes.

[goconfigure]

No Flash = no hulu, no netflix, and no robust web support. I'm sure YouTube will have limitations like it does on the iphone. This thing sounds like a dud. Think Apple's going to bathe in these. Pass.
Bring on the Alienware M11x for $899!! First in line for that!

[ward.smith]

As the price for these devices falls, and it will, they will become a much better deal for the consumer. I would only want the 64 MB model and at this time $700 is too much. For $500, I would probably purchase one.

[Adama D. Brown]

In the last couple of days, three TechnologyGuide Editors have written editorials about the iPad, with three very different oprions:

I can summarize the problem: The iPad is a cool gadget with lots of potential uses. I'd have a lot of fun playing with one. But there isn't the clear same market niche for it that there is for, say, an iPod Touch or iPhone. It may be able to swim just on the strength of being an Apple device, but they may well find that's not enough.

It would be an easier sell as a portable movie device if you knocked a couple hundred bucks off the pricetag and made it widescreen.

[palur]

Does it have a usb or SD card reader built-in? How can one read documents from other computers? How is it better than a netbook? Except it is from Apple-a fad rather than an Ipad, I think.

[Mi An]

Like I said, every Windows tablet has been a fail. Whatever happened to the Windows 7 HP tablet Ballmer presented early this month on CES? Snore, forgotten. Funny how HP also had Android tablet too.

No, they all failed in price, not tablet itself. Dropped those PC slates to $499, they will be sold like hot cakes.

Although I'd like to see an Android or WinMo7 tablet (though that presumes B&N and Amazon get off their butts and make reader apps for them, on that front, Win7 would be better), for some of the reasons Drillbit noted, the main reason I didn't care about the Win7 tablets promo'd was the deafening lack of Pixel Qi. You don't need eink-scale battery life to sell a reader, but you do need decent battery life. 4-6 hours of reading won't cut it. I think 16 would.

I'm not even sure if win7 would run on a cortex or snapdragon, but on the battery life/performance front, I'd want a processor like that as well.