maxi pad

It is almost comically large too -- the bezel is enormous. No way you could actually run with that thing anywhere on your person:




Has a bit of the "stupid giant remote for old people" feel, no?

lmao

More "openness" -- ePub?1? So Kindle & Amazon are adrift with the "rest of the world" on a different standard. I hear Bezo's nervous laughter changing into a maniacal cackle...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJC9nfVdAcE

microSIM?

GSM meets "cablecard"...

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/12/04/hell-freezes-over-the-fcc-admits-that-cablecard-is-a-failure/

Here is the CPU -- big "F U" to Intel...

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/appletablet/appletabletb577.jpg

Hmm... As the one who thought the iPod wasn't going to make it… I'm thinking this one will do ok.

I may get one. But I'm also concerned about it. I don't like how locked the iPhone is and thank God for Cydia all the time.

It'll be annoying that it's another iPhone OS system.

Wow, it's the deadest day of a big Apple announcement Sporkland has ever seen. Seriously, there's a more active discussion of the iPad over at Metafilter, even.

I'm on board with "Ho-hum" as a reaction, so far -- it seems like all the engineering effort (at least in this version of the product) has gone into the price point. $499 is the thing's most important feature. But those "breakthrough" 3G data plans? Horrible. Why should I pay *another* $30/month for another device? The iPhone SIM-card-cloning business is about to get big.

I don't see how a clone of a SIM from an iPhone would be all that wonderful -- presumably the microSIM format was chosen SPECIFICALLY to make ATT happy as there is no space limitation on the humongous iPad. I suspect that the means of "activation" that ATT is cooking up will also require that the info about the MAC Address and similar data will be burned to the pay-per-month account and that ATT network devices that 'see' that device number associated with another account (like for an iPhone...) will get bounced from the 3G network...

Probably easier to tether.


UPDATE -- the non-3G units would seem to lack any sort of means of getting on any sort of high speed mobile data network at the present time: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

Methinks the "rev b / c / d" iPads will provide a means to embrace 4G/WiMAX/ LTE networks. Tightly. Or else...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2010 09:59AM by stan adams.

Ok. Mostly due to price-to-features, this might be my first Apple product that I get as soon as they are available.

Early adopter schadenfreude be damned.

[Did I use that word correctly? We here in the midwest have limited vocabulary. "be"? or "done be"? :) ]

I'll get one. It will allow me to stop carrying a full laptop to work every day, but still let me get unfettered mobile net access. I find the device as it stands uninspiring, but as a platform for future development I think it looks much more promising. Not because it is intrinsically better than a netbook or cheap laptop, but because of the standard architecture and the Apple glamour.

OK, so basically we have a huge iPod touch now? I'm afraid that these devices will slowly start replacing 'normal' computers and thus will lead to a world where Apple as a gatekeeper will decide what's appropriate for their users. In a way I'm glad Google is going to provide some competition, even if the OS situation in their world currently a bit of a Byzantine setup.

I'm pretty happy with my iPhone, but it bugs the hell out of me I need to run a hacked OS to just run the innovative applications that Apple deems inappropriate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2010 10:38AM by tliet.

It would seem 1984 has arrived for Apple.

For Tony, from a Gizmodo review:

Pornography

It's simple: You can hold something that weighs 1.5 pounds in one hand.

The biggest concern I have is yet another chip, yet another OS/API conflagration.
I think they dropped the click-wheel APIs at least for gaming and such.
I mean...

OS X
Server OS
Touch/phone OS
iPad - variant OS/API
Apple TV
Click wheel OS/API (games, but dead?)

Intel CPU
Apple TV chips
ipod nano/Classic chips
ipod shuffle chips
Apple A4 CPU family

I'm sure I'm missing something here, too. Not sure about the Time Capsule OS/Chips.

I always was under the impression they were at one time interested in scaling OS X (coreWhatever) to make implementing and deployment a bit easier across physical products.

Does not seem to be going that way at all.

shrug

When does the iBooks store become available? Will we eventually be able to buy and read iBooks on our iPhones?

God, that iPrefix is getting iRritating.

I was completely uninspired until the pricing was announced. Now I'd say there's a decent chance I'll get one this summer, finances permitting. I was thinking about getting a Kindle anyway, so if the book reader in the iPad turns out to be good, and the book selection and pricing turns out to be good, I might as well spend a bit more money than I would for the Kindle and get a device with more capabilities. But there's none of the sense of awe I felt with the iPhone.

From my friend Tim:
According to Apple's spec sheet, the iPad is almost as thin as Steve Jobs.

I expected the engineers here to be unimpressed by the 'Pad. But most of them have iPhones, and most seem to show at least an inclination to consider purchasing. The price and the data plans are key to this, I think.

Two thoughts:

1 - If the A4 chip is Apple-fabbed, what does that mean? I want to know more about this chip's specs.
2 - iWork running on this device, if it sells as well as I think it will, is a big fuck you to MS, since they have no iPhone OS versions of Office.

I think PA Semi worked on ARM derivative chips. I think that Apple is using a custom variant of one of the Cortex series of ARM chips, probably fabbed by Samsung.