iPad

[divine]

Not without buying an accessory to stand it up with you can't, it'd be flat on the surface and you'd have to walk over to it to see it

[Mark]

Originally Posted by petemc

I know. I said that.

My point was that non-tech types don't know they need to worry about it. As such, that argument carries very little weight. We know it's a non-issue only the iPad - they just don't care.

Why buy the iPad over a netbook? Ask again in a year or two when hopefully the print industry is revitalised and offering all manner of newspapers and magazines via the App store. There's great potential in the iPad.

There are two problems with that argument. Firstly the obvious one - it only works in the US (for now, admittedly). How far behind are we going to be given that we don't even get all the existing iTunes stuff?

Secondly, a large percentage of those Apps will be subscription services (certainly will if Rupert Murdoch gets his way). There's a big unknown right there - how many people will be prepared to pay when you can just fire up a browser and point it at BBC, or CNN, or Digg?

Basing sales of the iPad on the print industry might just be asking for trouble - but it's one of those where we both could be right, or wrong.

[petemc]

Originally Posted by divine

Not without buying an accessory to stand it up with you can't, it'd be flat on the surface and you'd have to walk over to it to see it

Like a book then My parents have a stand for holding up cooking books that the iPad would happily sit on. Much nicer than clearing space for a netbook Ner ner

[Mark]

My thinking exactly. Thought I'd posted those thoughts too but obviously I didn't. Book stand would be rather more stable to boot.

[petemc]

http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/35922...uters-ive-been

[LeperousDust]

Everyone saying that holding an iPad is similar and as "easy as" a book are totally missing the fact the iPad will weight a fair but more than most books and definately magazines you're used too! A stand will work yes, but just holding it whilst sitting around "relaxing" on the couch i dont think will be very comfotable! Whereas these silly netbooks have a stand buiuld in using old technology called a "hinge".

/Sarcasm

[petemc]

...

Originally Posted by petemc

Have you seen Lord of the Rings?!

[Mark]

Originally Posted by petemc

http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/35922...uters-ive-been

Nice sentiment, but a flawed argument which only really applies to end users. Why? Who wrote the firmware for this New World utopia? That'll be the Old World then. I don't see self-resident development being possible for a while, though it's more of an option on the iPad than it was on the iPhone.

For average Joe user, New World may very well turn out to be king, but it might yet not be Apple's New World. There's this annoying pest called Google who have a somewhat different vision.

PS - maybe if they put the big friendly words 'DON'T PANIC' on it, we'd be getting somewhere.

[petemc]

Originally Posted by Mark

Nice sentiment, but a flawed argument which only really applies to end users. Why? Who wrote the firmware for this New World utopia? That'll be the Old World then.

I don't think there's any question of that at all. Obviously it'll be the IT nerds coding things on Mac's n stuff. Thats not the point. People need to stop looking at this as a geeky tech toy and look past that.

Its funny really. When was the last time you saw someone bitch about the Xbox 360 being locked down, running MS approved apps only and you didn't have the freedom to run stuff in the background? You can't use twitter while gaming. The Wii only lets you run approved apps in the way Nintendo deem acceptable. Why should the iPad conform to your traditional standards of what a computer should be? PS3, PS2, PS1, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, Nintendo DS etc all don't. Is that because we've accepted them as consoles not computers?

[Mark]

Originally Posted by petemc

Is that because we've accepted them as consoles not computers?

Yup, for the most part, though even there it's a bit of a grey area, because not everyone accepted that. For example, you can run Linux on a PS3, Homebrew on a DS, and so forth.

I 'get' the New World argument for Joe user. It clearly works for the most part - though there's clearly some flaws to work out (Sat Nav getting interrupted by phone calls on the iPhone for one). Still not convinced about the iPad mind - for Joe, a Netbook will do most the same things they want, even if it is decidedly Old World. It is, however, one case where I'm happy to be proved wrong - and probably will be.