iPad

[larry cazes]

If Apple is the Hi-Standard.....

Now, if you're used to buying entry-level PCs from second rate manufacturers, you might be on to something.....

I've worked on computers literally for over 15 years out of the 25 I've been alive.

Macs are much more user friendly and stable than PCs. And let us not forget what Windows was built to mimic.

I owned my first computer in 1980 and it was an Apple II. Great machine and it still sits in my father's garage along with his Osbourne. Since then Apple's business policies are what keep me from buying ANY apple products other than my Ipod. I have been using PC's in engineering environments for 20 years alongside others using MACs and there doesnt appear to be ANY difference in reliability or stability. They scream at their machines just as often as the PC users.

[Jake Di Vita]

Yep, my Father owned the same machine.

I don't really care about their business policies...I will use whatever enables me to finish my job with the most efficiency.

I should have stipulated that there isn't much difference when you get into the actual program (although macs are a hell of a lot less buggy, and there are also way fewer virus problems). In engineering environments, I really have no idea. As far as desktop publishing...give me a mac every time.

[Vlad]

 

And let us not forget what Windows was built to mimic. 

Yeah I liked Xerox Star too 

I'm probably the only guy who thinks NeWS was better the X Window, but its long dead now and X still runs in top of my now Windows 7 desktop. Also my macbook pro runs Vista so that should tell you what I think of OS X. 

[raz-0]

If Apple is the Hi-Standard.....

Now, if you're used to buying entry-level PCs from second rate manufacturers, you might be on to something.....

I've worked on computers literally for over 15 years out of the 25 I've been alive.

Macs are much more user friendly and stable than PCs. And let us not forget what Windows was built to mimic.

I've worked on computers longer.  Mac OS was one of the most unstable things on the planet. OS X is better, but it is still an ergonomic nightmare, and once you want to do thing other than the steve jobs way, you are screwed. As for quality and stability, Macs give up both on the hardware side in order to have a cool form factor.  Where I work, we buy literally hundreds of macs each year for labs (until they stop being the cheapest thing to buy hundreds of). They all run windows because of things OS X cannot do or will not permit you to do that are necessary  to make them functional in a publicly accessible lab and still be secure.  The rate of motherboard failure due to heat on the higher end macbooks is stupidly high. Just in my workgroup, out of 5 17 inch macbooks, we have had 6 motherbaord replacements in less than 2 years (we also went from 5 OS X installs to only one person not running something other than OSX as their primary OS). My friend who works in a more mac centric place supports 42 macbooks on a 4 year evergreening cycle.  Except for the 10 plastic cased 13 inchers, everyone is on at least it's second motherboard, and is less than 3 years old.  There is not sufficient air moving through the them, and the heatsinking is sub-standard for the components on board. 

As for who mimics what, Lots of people were doing the same thing at the same time. GeOS, AmigaOS,  MacOS, Windows.  And everyone was stealing from xerox, who was stupid enough to think their ideas were useless in the real world. 

User friendliness, well I'll point to basic undocumented features in pretty much all of the apple products. If it weren't for the presence of a web browser one click away from the get go and search engines, there'd be a LOT more bitching about the documentation). Additionally, apple could use a good hard look at standardizing installing and uninstalling apps. There are at least 3 official ways to install something, and the odds of being able to figure out which is right for a given app without trial and error or instructions is near zero. As far as uninstalling, there is the "normal way", and effectively infinite variations on it.  That's just one example, there are a ton more. Most of windows stability and usability issues come down to malicious software. These days, NO os is safe. If you can get shell, you can get root. With web browsers and extensions/plug-ins/scripts, EVERY os has stupid users giving up shell access. The only thing protecting OS X is economies of scale, and you are finally starting to see OS X botnets cropping up.  So we'll see how that goes in the coming years. 

[Chris Keen]

Where's the built-in camera? My netbook has a camera. My Droid has a camera! Hell every cell phone I've ever owned has had a camera. Why no camera?

[maineshootah]

Where's the built-in camera? My netbook has a camera. My Droid has a camera! Hell every cell phone I've ever owned has had a camera. Why no camera?

Sigh.. so much promise to knock my socks off..

No camera, one app at a time, no flash..

The iphone / itouch multipoint touch interface is awesome, so that will be big draw with it. However, I think it missed the mark for those of us that would be willing to carry it around all day for work.

Modbook is what I am looking at now.

[ChuckS]

I think it will be very useful...

[maineshootah]

Or this..

[waktasz]

Until it supports Flash their claim that the iPad is the best way to surf the web is totally false.

I love my iPhone, and I have a Thinkpad laptop, I'm not sure what an iPad's use is.

[wgnoyes]

...The lack of the flash player is what makes me hate my Iphone.

I love my iPhone 16g and my iPod touch 64g. I've watched people for months and months now sit at dinner after shooting our tuesday night match with their various smartphones out looking at email and whatnot and I NEVER thought I'd ever be one to want look at a little bitty screen to check email...., but I do it now, and the platform works well for it.

Yeah, I'd to have flash on them and I'm betting that'll come sometime, which is why I'll wait past the first generation of iPad for version 2 before I think about it. I don't see the iPad as a carry-around allday everyday device like the other two. Rather, it seems more to me like a casual at-home or at-work email client and web browser. Maybe not even on planes; I don't have any room on a damn plane in coach for much more than the iPod, which has satisfactorily kept me sane on many a long trip from east to west and back.

And I'm sure there'll be plenty of aftermarket cases and screen protectors for it, just as there are now for everything else.