Derek Rose

Just wanted to write down some initial thoughts about the iPad, without having ever used one of course, but no one else has used one either so we’re all just basing our reactions on bullet points and glossy photos at this point.

Name

Really not feeling the name. I’m one of the people that thinks of Maxi Pads every time I hear it or read it. There’s also a lot of jokes going around about people from Boston not being able to differentiate between the iPod and iPad when they speak it. I liked the iTablet or iSlate better. But meh. Didn’t really like the MacBook and MacBook Pro names when they came out either, it’s just something you get used to over time with any product.

Hardware

It really is just a big iPod Touch or iPhone without the phone. A lot of people would have liked to see a camera, either front or rear facing. No front-facing camera means that none of the augmented reality apps for the iPhone will work on the device. No rear-facing camera means no video chat or video conferencing. Other than those uses I can’t really imagine anyone using it as a camera, so maybe that’s why they left it off. It does have a microphone though so at least the dictation apps will work like Dragon Dictation for the iPhone which could be good considering it has a touchscreen keyboard that I’m sure a lot of people will not like or will have trouble using. This could also make VoIP apps possible like Skype where you could still use it for voice communication even without any actual phone functionality.

I think the black bezel around the screen looks rather large. Some of the fan mock-ups I’ve seen have it going closer to the edge and I personally think that looks better. It makes the screen look smaller and overall kind of goofy to me.

Of course the connectivity options are extremely limited. No SD slot, no USB, etc without adapters. The whole device is kind of in a weird place between an iPod/iPhone and a computer. There is no access to the file system or anything like an iPod, but it’s big enough to compare to a full laptop that would have those features.

Software

Right now I think it’s in a similar position to what the iPhone had when it first came out. When the iPhone was announced it was actually better than all of the rumors had guessed it would be. However when I first got mine I wasn’t using it nearly as much as I do now thanks to all of the amazing apps that have come out for it. I think the iPad will be the same way. The iPad native apps like Mail and Photos look really good on the iPad. The iPod apps that are tiny on the screen or doubled in size look GOOFY.

I think the success or failure of the iPad is really going to depend on the software that’s developed for it. iPhone software upscaled on the device is pointless and there is really no reason to use an iPad over an iPhone or iPod Touch if you already have one. They did this just for some backwards compatibility and so they could launch the device with 140,000 apps instead of more like six. When the developers start taking advantage of the larger size screen and new form factor I think it’ll really take off.

I think it’ll be amazing for certain specialized uses as well. Imagine a doctor or nurse carrying one around doing their rounds and using a fully “iPad-ized” app to take notes and diagnose illnesses, etc. It’s got the battery life to last a full shift and the connectivity to connect to a hospital-wide wifi network. You could even have a keyboard dock in each room to plug it into and type longer notes.

Or a server administrator at a server farm with a bunch of headless servers. Simply carry an iPad around and use a VNC client that I’m sure someone will develop for it so you can connect to any server easily and do what you need to do on it.

It also bothers me that everything has to go through the App Store because of the problems Apple has had approving (or not approving) apps for various reasons. For instance what if I’d like to install VLC on the iPad to play DivX files that I’ve downloaded rather than having to go through iTunes or use an Apple-approved format. This is the reason that the AppleTV doesn’t appeal to me at all, it’s just a front-end for your iTunes content. I don’t get my content from iTunes, and don’t like that being my only real option for getting content to my TV.

The file system is also hidden from view like the iPhone, putting this firmly in the big iPhone category rather than the “tablet Mac running OS X category”. But, that ends up not bothering me much on the iPhone, so maybe it’s just my view of what to expect from the device that needs to change, not the device itself.

What’s missing

I already mentioned the camera, but a lot of people are wondering why there is no multi-tasking as well which I fully understand. The lack of multi-tasking apps seems like a huge weakness to me. I understand why they don’t do it on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s a small screen with limited battery and processor power and running multiple apps could easily cause everything to run super slow or crash the device.

The confusion this causes with the iPad I think is that it’s a larger device that is much closer to full laptop size with much greater battery life and processing power, and they still won’t let you run more than one app at once. I understand not wanting someone to run a full 3D game in the background and complain about their Notes app not running smoothly, but what if I want to do something really simple like listen to Pandora radio while I write something in Pages or read an eBook? What if I want to have my instant messenger or Twitter app running while I’m writing an email? This seems really crippling to me. Especially since it can run iPhone apps, it seems like these would be prime options to run as if they were widgets on a full OS X machine.

There are still limited resources on the iPad as well of course, but I could open 15 apps on my iMac and it would run slowly as well. I think they should put a little more trust in the users to be able to decide if they could open a few apps or not on the iPad. I made fun of Microsoft when they announced that the lowest version of Windows 7 could only run three applications at once, and now Apple isn’t even letting you run that many. I get that they want the system to be super responsive at all times by only running one app, but come on. The simple uses I’ve described above should easily be possible without any degradation in performance.

Flash is also missing from the device, perhaps just because they haven’t developed a version of it to run on the device yet, or perhaps because they don’t want it to. This will block out a lot of internet streaming video options that a lot of people like to watch these days. Yes there is a YouTube app, but there are lots of video sites out there that use Flash other than YouTube. Perhaps Apple is counting on them moving to HTML 5 video streaming like YouTube and Vimeo have already done and Flash not being as necessary.

Price

I think the price is great, I was expecting it to be closer to $1,000 for any of the models and basically competing with the MacBook. I think $500 is a great starting point and has it directly competing with crappy netbooks from other manufacturers.

I purchased a $350 MSI Wind netbook to take to Iraq with me and for another $150 I could have had an Apple product instead. The Wind got the job done, but it feels as cheap as you’d think, meaning the screen is super small and very dim, the keyboard is cramped and flimsy feeling, it ran Windows so of course it had that problem to add to everything else, etc.

Of course $500 is only starting out and that only gives you 16gb of storage which is not a lot in any way when you start adding a few movies to it, especially when there is no way to add any extra storage space with an SD card or any other type of storage.

Other random things

I hope they find an elegant way for people to tell what software in the App Store works with each device, because we are going to see some serious fragmentation very quickly. When the iPad comes out there is going to be software that works on iPhone because of the camera and always-on connectivity and phone functionality, then software that works on that plus the iPod Touch, then software that may work on the iPad as well, then software that has a better iPad version, etc. It could soon get complicated developing an app for those three devices, plus any others that come out in the future. A lot of the complaints I see about the Android based phones is that it’s hard to find apps because the features and power on each phone is different so some apps work on Brand X but not Brand Y, then others will run smoothly on one phone but horribly on another.

I don’t think the iPad could have ever lived up to the hype. The iPhone actually shocked everyone and was better than the hype, but now everyone is comparing the iPad to the iPhone and it just doesn’t seem as remarkable anymore. People wanted to be wowed like they were when the iPhone came out and that just didn’t happen. It hasn’t revolutionized the world like people were dreaming of. The part that sucks about this is that Apple didn’t even have anything to do with all of the hype for the device. They didn’t advertise all these amazing features before the device was actually ready like many companies do, they kept their mouth shut until the actual product announcement like they always do. It’s the analysts and pundits and average internet users that created all of the hype and played it up to be the greatest thing since the iPhone. This sometimes works really well for Apple because of all the free publicity, but it can also backfire badly when the reality doesn’t live up to the crazy speculation by people that have nothing to do with actually designing or selling the device.

How will you print from this device? It has Pages so obviously they want you to create documents on it, but how will you print that document? Is the only option to send it to your “real computer” and print it from there?

Would I buy one?

I already have a 27” iMac which is an incredible machine. I think I will always want a big beefy desktop machine for gaming and having lots of power available. I could definitely see myself using the iPad if I was on the road a lot though as a second computer. It’s better than a netbook running Windows for sure. At this time I really don’t travel a lot so I don’t think I’ll be getting one as I already have my computer at home as well as an iPhone and an Amazon Kindle for book reading. If I got deployed again or was away from home for a few months though I think it would be great for that type of use.

The lack of multi-tasking really does annoy me though. I have Pandora streaming pretty much all the time on my desktop computer while I’m doing homework, etc. This is apparently not going to be possible on the iPad. I also wouldn’t be able to reference an eTextbook for a class and then switch to Pages to write my report about it without quitting each app each time and waiting for the apps to “boot up” each time I switch. This just seems crippling to me for no real reason. Maybe this will be an option with an OS update or something or maybe not until later revisions of the device with a stronger processor. Either way it feels like the most crippling “feature” of the device to me at this point and is probably the biggest obstacle keeping me from being really excited about it.

Maybe there should be a new category of app that is a mini-app and has to meet certain CPU usage criteria before being accepted in the App store. Apps like a small twitter client or an online radio streaming app could fit this category and be allowed to run in the background maybe even in a small widget that could be pulled in from the edges of the screen or something when you wanted to access it. This way we could at least have some multi-tasking functionality without it bogging down the system too much.

The other little problems like not having any real software to take advantage of the size or the device will be worked out with time, but if they don’t ever let you run more than one app in some way, it’s always going to feel crippled to me I think.

It’s not FOR me

Read a good point on a blog that I am probably not the target audience for this device anyway (“I” being a geek or hardcore user I guess). The iPad has abstracted away a lot of the things that confuse new computer users about computers. Navigating hierarchical directories, wondering what all those system files are that they didn’t put there and don’t know what they do, etc. I remember one customer at the Genius bar that threw her entire system folder into the trash because she didn’t think she needed it. That type of thing isn’t possible with the iPad. You just touch the pretty icons of the apps you’d like to use, then press the one single button on the device (no more wondering where the power button is) to quit it and go back to the screen where you select another application. You don’t even need to know a way to switch between apps, it’s always just press the home button and choose another app. You don’t need a way to tell if an app is running or not or which ones you can switch between. You don’t have to know what a disk image is or how to drag an app to your applications folder and then eject the disk image afterwards to install software, you just click on “download” and wait a few seconds.

This may be Apple’s way of simplifying the computer experience even further like they originally did with the GUI of the original Mac. People thought that was less powerful and a toy at the time as well compared to the command line, but it has obviously been successful. Some of the limitations of the iPad are a drawback for the power users, but for the average computer user is makes the whole device even more simple and easy to use.

This same thing has happened in the video game world where publishers have moved away from the hardcore gamers somewhat and are branching out to “the others” that don’t play games 40 hours a week. The biggest example of course being the Wii, but the other consoles have “dumbed down” some of their games for the casual market as well, and to great commercial success, again especially in the Wii’s case.

My mother-in-law has played a Wii for goodness sake, a feat that NEVER would have been accomplished if you put a complicated Xbox 360 or PS3 controller in her hand with 15 buttons all over. But put a Wii controller in her hand and tell her all she has to do is shake her arm around, and she understands it and is having fun. She also has an iPod Touch that she uses to check her email and listen to music and audiobooks because she doesn’t want to take the time to learn a full desktop OS like Windows or even Mac OS X. Now guess what, she has a larger sized iPod Touch that she already knows how to use but can more easily read and carry around with her on her farm. She can email, she can browse the web, she can watch a YouTube video without having to understand the file system of the OS, without being bothered with managing a dozen windows that open up all over her screen, etc. She focuses on one task at a time, in a simple manner.

This device is not for geeks (though I think it eventually will be when apps are developed that provide a little more functionality), it is for the average or below average computer user that doesn’t care about things that geeks care about. They don’t care how the computer works or about being able to organize and control the minutiae of what is happening at every level of the computer, they just want to get on it and read an email or look up something on the internet quickly and easily without other distractions.

And I believe that because of that they may sell like hotcakes just like the Wii has done. The geeks are just going to have to realize that not every electronic device is designed for them anymore, companies are finding ways to reach out to everyone, not just the technologically inclined.

I purchased the new 27” quad-core iMac a couple days ago and wanted to post some of my first impressions about it.

Picked it up at the Cherry Creek Apple Store rather than ordering online because I’m very impatient when it comes to getting a new Mac. The specialist that got the computer for me was a little disoriented when I walked up to him and rattled off to him exactly what I wanted, including accessories like the mini display port to DVI adapter and Applecare. He stared at me for a second, mentally fast-forwarding through his normal sales pitch to the part where he goes and gets the computer and checks me out. One nice thing the Apple Store apparently has now is a runner system where the specialists can go to any computer and fill out a form for a runner to bring a computer out from the back. Seems handy so they don’t have to leave the sales floor. Only problem is the runner brought out a Core 2 Duo model instead of the quad-core, what a noob!

They finally got the right box out and it was rather large. It was a long walk to the car lugging the box with me, but it was 50 pounds of glorious iMac, so it was ok.

The unboxing experience is great as always. The wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse were both smaller than I expected, and of course the skimpy manual and restored discs are also included in the box. It also comes with a nice polishing cloth for the display, which I’m sure I’ll be using frequently.

Of course the next thing to be noticed is how monstrous this display is. It is fantastically big. My previous machine was a Mac Pro with a 20” cinema Display (now for sale!) and a 24” Dell monitor. I thought the 24” was big, but the 27” makes it look rather wimpy. The full glory of the display isn’t appreciated until you turn it on though. it is like looking into the sun if the sun were running OS X. SO bright and crisp. This new display makes my $700 Dell monitor that I used to love look like a piece of absolute junk. What I thought used to be white is actually a dirty yellow color and what I thought used to be a high resolution, crisp display now looks rather blurry. I haven’t decided yet if I even want another monitor hooked up to the iMac anymore, not only because the built-in one is so big already, but because having them side-by-side just makes the non-iMac display look so awful. I already find myself moving windows that I normally had on the secondary display to the primary one because I just don’t like looking at it on that dim, fuzzy display. The display is of course covered in glass, which does indeed reflect a great deal of light from behind me unfortunately. The display is so bright that it makes it more bearable, but I still have to close the shades behind me if I want to play a game or something and need to be able to see the whole display really clearly with no reflections. I’ll also be putting that polishing cloth to good use, as just touching the display around the edges a few times to plug things in the back puts very obvious fingerprints all over it.

After plugging it in the first time I went right to restoring it from my Time Machine backup, so I had to sit and watch a progress bar for about an hour while that happened. At least it was a super bright, crisp progress bar. Upon finally booting into the OS proper, everything was of course exactly how I had left it on my Mac Pro. Migration Assistant and/or restoring from a Time Machine backup actually makes getting a new machine a little less exciting I think. Part of the joy of getting a new machine used to be seeing the clean dock and getting to download all of the applications I wanted and to use it as a way to start over with a clean slate. Restoring from a backup and booting up is just business as usual, with everything exactly as you left it on your last machine. Of course what it lacks in excitement it makes up for in less headaches and less time wasted setting things up again, so it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.

It is noticeably faster than my three year old Mac Pro, applications that used to take a few seconds to launch now pop up almost instantaneously. Game performance is great. World of Warcraft is super smooth even in places that used to bog it down like the main city of Dalaran. I installed Modern Warfare 2 on a Windows 7 partition and it runs noticeably better than on the Mac Pro, even at the higher resolution. I can run the game at the full 2560 x 1440 resolution on the 27” with all the settings maxed out and 2x anti-aliasing with no jitters or pauses at all. I don’t know the exact frames per second it puts out, but I can easily say “enough”.

The Windows 7 install is still a little tricky for some people apparently, as at some point in the installation process it decides that the video out port is the primary display, so if you don’t have a second monitor plugged into the iMac all you see is a black screen at some point in the installation process and you can’t go any further without rebooting from the install disc and manually deleting some display driver. Apple is supposed to come out with 100% Windows 7 support later this year with Boot Camp so that should fix the problem. Luckily I have the extra display already so it just switched to that display at some point in the process and after updating the video drivers it used both of them correctly again.

Unfortunately my digital camera uses an xD memory card, so I won’t be using the SD slot built-in to the computer without an adapter I guess. So I’ll probably just stick to plugging in the camera with USB. It is handy to have it though, for people that use that type of memory.

I like the little wireless keyboard, it’s nice to just grab it and put it in your lap so you can lean back and compute, but I do miss the number pad. I’m still using my wired keyboard right now, not sure if I’ll switch completely to the wireless one. It would be nice for controlling my Mac Mini media center, except I already have a nice iPhone app that does that so it’s not really needed unless I were to start playing games on it or something.

The Magic Mouse, I am not such a fan of. I guess I am just not the target audience for any of Apple’s mice. I’ve never liked any of them they’ve made from the puck on the original iMac to the Mighty Mouse and now this thing. The gesture support seems hit or miss, and requires weird contorting of your hand to hold on to the mouse at the same time you swipe two fingers around on the top of it. There is no feedback that your gesture has actually been interpreted correctly. For instance going forwards and backwards in the browser by swiping two fingers left and right, there is no way to tell it actually took until you see the page change. Because of a short delay in loading the page, sometimes it’ll take a second to come up and by then I’ve already swiped repeatedly, thinking that it didn’t accept the gesture and then it jumps back several pages. Give me a clicky button any day. It also feels unbalanced and a bit too heavy because of the batteries, but I’m used to a corded mouse that is pretty light so that may just be a preference. I also find it highly frustrating to have to lift my left finger up off the mouse in order for it to interpret a right click. Not to mention it makes it impossible to click both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time, which is necessary in all of the games I play. I’ll keep my Logitech MX518 thank you very much.

Overall I think it’s a great machine so far and a good upgrade from my Mac Pro. It’s faster than even current generation Mac Pros (the quad-core one anyway) and is considerably cheaper plus it includes a huge, amazing display. I’m really glad that it ships with 4gb of RAM with two slots left open, will make upgrading in the future much cheaper. Hooray to Apple for that.

If anyone wants to buy a super awesome Mac Pro and display let me know. ;-)

It started with this:

Then this:

And finally:

I’m sure it’ll keep going from there. So awesome. Especially at 32 seconds. WAhahaha