DD_545i

Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd happily pay Apple double the price they're currently charging if they were to resolve their major design flaws and inflexibility. You can't say that not being able to put in a spare battery is a good idea surely. On a recent trip to England with my Nokia N95, I didn't even take my charger with me because I know that (a) the battery life is way better than an iPhone so it's not going to run out of juice in less than 24 hours, (b) I took along a couple of spare batteries that I'd bought on ebay for about $10 each. Apple deliberately design out the ability to change battery and force you to have to send the product to them for $100 so they can replace it. I have experience of what it's like owning an iPod. I was given one by my employer as a little project completion bonus gift. I hated every moment of living with that thing. From the pathetic battery life (and lack of replaceable battery) to the pathetic OS that crashed and needed the holding down the buttons on startup for 10 seconds to reset it trick. It's been sat in a box for the last 5 years stuck in some crash state. For me the only good things about any Apple gadget are that they look pretty and the UI (when it's working) is easy to use. Give me a device that doesn't look quite so good but always works and I have the chance that it's not always dead and needing a charge and I'll pay more for that than for anything Apple offer.

The Samsung device is long since dead. I was just mentioning that I'd had MP3 players from them back in 2000/2001 before the iPod existed. At the time they were the best player you could buy. These days I listen to MP3s on the go via my Nokia N95.

There is a large market of potential high-end consumers out there that want something better than the i-gadgets and Apple could reach them if they wanted to, but they see their current success level as being the justification and verification that what they're doing is right. They don't realize they could do twice as much business.

msevestre

Hi

I was thinking to buy a DVD player for kids on rear seats... but iPad would be a nice video player with its LED screen and high view angle !

Bad news for France: no price nor availability... but price is usually higher than a simple currency change rate when products are sold in France

Matt

nomis_nehc

I dunno... I personally think it's a glorified gigantica iPod Touch.

And $499 is the absolute low model: little memory, and no 3G. (And of course, Apple will milk you for all your worth for accessories)

BetterMakeWay

Adobe Flash is a big resource hog on any system or mobile device. Using some flash heavy sites sometimes i get the fan spooled up rather quickly on my MBP and i didn't know why until i opened activity monitor and saw that safari was going crazy. Having said that, enabling some flash plugins on the Apple mobile devices would drive the battery even worse. I for one can live without flash and hardly waiting till flash goes to trash as soon as possible.

This strategy isn't something to blame as it makes sense both economically and sociologically. The first can be explained by testing the market with a lowered price product with less features, and if things go bad with the sales the loss is minimized. Of course if you start strapping cameras, and other hardware the price goes up. Neither would i want to own my company and produce a super new device in a market niche, blasting it with hardware and other stuff, and so ending up with a big price tag that MAY not sell. After the customer approves such a product, it's safe to move to enhancements, even if those enhancements were available form the get go, and even if it drives the pice up afterwards. It's common sense after all!

I myself asked that question. Why not OS X on that tablet? And i think the answer is quite simple: It may be quite difficult to implement a full blown OS on a device that's designed to work by touch input. For example, if your familiar to OS X, let me ask you what happened when you hit Spotlight in OSX? The text box opens and here goes the need to bring up the virtual keyboard. While bringing up the keyboard, tell me what happened to the dock? Does it lift together with the keyboard? Is there enough room to avoid cluttering the screen very easily by using the virtual keyboard on almost half the screen?

And this is just one issue that cane come up, that comes to my mind. Full blow OSes need big storage, the iPad is not ready to go with a 256 GB SSD or it is ready but it would cost triple the base model. Then you need all the necessary external ports to take advantage of the OS, ports that take a lot of space, and thus further push the price up. Then you need extra cooling, which is not something to dismiss so easily.... problems can go on and on... PLUS integrating OS X with touch into such a portable and buttonless device may cost more in R&D, cost that again pushes the price up.

Sorry man but from the pics that Kindle is junk compared to the iPad. The clunky apparent feel of those buttons and that B&W screen from 30 years ago is something i would say 'PASS with laurels' in favor of the iPad which is only a few bucks more expensive.


My personal reaction to the tablet: I will certainly wait for the summer iPhone (4th gen) and wait and see that new features it provides. If i jump in on the new iPhone i will for sure wait for the 2nd gen tablet with improved features. Havign said taht there is no doubt in my mind that Apple has again established a cornerstone in the mobile devices market. It only needs some time to grow and evolve, just like the first gen iPhone. Now the iPhone is truly a phenomenon, something that nobody was able to say 3 years ago.

kscarrol

I will agree that the iPad is a slicker design but the funtionality of the device is little different, in terms of being an electronic book. I own a kindle and the buttons are anything but clunky, try one some time rather than passing judgement based on a photo. My point was that the only thing the iPad brings to the table is cosmetic and for that I am not willing to pay up. Maybe the 2nd gen will be a better offering and have some true computer/laptop abilities but until then my iPhone, on which I have the Kindle app, fills all the same needs and more: video, music, apps and of course the phone.

pukka

I can't wait to see how AT&T's "fastest" 3G network holds up once millions of people start taking advantage of the unlimited data package for $30 a month.

Because of their history with the iPhone on its network - I won't hold my breath.

DD_545i

Imagine if there were a torrent app for iphone and/or ipad. Considering that it's a device that will play video, that would definitely kill the 3G network stone dead.

swajames

There are already torrent apps for the iPhone. These apps should in principle work on the iPad. They require a jailbroken iPhone, but if you're into torrents you're probably running a jailbroken iPhone already...

DD_545i

I imagine the vast majority of phones probably aren't hacked so it's probably not that big a problem now. I guess Apple (perhaps with pressure from AT&T) don't allow an official torrent app. Can you buy video episodes via iphone-itunes? like you can with itunes on a computer? That would also drain the network.

swajames

yep, the iTunes app on the iPhone already lets you buy (or rent) movies and TV episodes over the air, via WiFi or 3G. Over the air purchases are automatically synchronized with your desktop so a movie you buy on the fly will be added to your main iTunes library.