The iPad Big Picture | Hacker News Reader

The iPad Big Picture

daringfireball.net

148 pointsfogus132 comments

The author is way off base carping about the CPU. It's the fastest CPU on a mobile device because it's likely a 3-issue ARM11-derived CPU with out-of-order execution: that means PA Semi (now part of Apple) has designed a chip based on the Cortex A9 or started with an ARM11 and tacked on similar features, like Qualcomm did with the Snapdragon (in the Nexus One) instead of opting for an Cortex A8-derived core.

When the Tegra2 and OMAP4 (Cortex-A9 derived ARM CPUs)start shipping in bulk the playing field is going to be leveled: now everyones got access to a 3-issue OOOE ARM11. Only these will (optionally) be multi-core, something Apple probably isn't interested in as it's not doing multitasking.

When XYZ is released the playing field is going to be leveled

When manufacturers start taking notice that unresponsive, laggy, slow devices are unpleasant to use, the playing field can start levelling. Until then everyone else is doing a Wintel - hardware many times faster, normal activities just as slow as ever. It's not hardware, it's software that matters, it's design.

I've been humming and hawing about whether this will be worth a look given the obvious things to gripe about. I heard on one of the post-announcement streams that the first impressions were roughly "heavier than expected, unbelievably responsive". This quote from DF "if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be “fast”." really pushes me strongly in favour. I'm interested.

If nobody else is going to push for responsive software and Apple are, then I'm going to lean more in Apple's direction.

I would rather put it the other way around: one of the most noticeable things about the iPhone / iPod touch is its slowness, the little glitches in the animations where the rendering drops a few frames, the pauses before there's a response to pressing the big button.

Wintel very much isn't "slow as ever", in my experience. Desktop machines are another class of hardware altogether; I have 12GB of memory, an SSD, 8 logical cores and 2 monitors on my desktop - nothing slow, laggy or unresponsive about it.

The iPhone has the feel of a device where they care about responsiveness but the hardware isn't up to it. Every Windows mobile phone I've seen has the feel that the software is built badly and nothing the hardware can do will help.

Wintel very much isn't "slow as ever"

You are right, I'm spoiled by fast hardware, compared to the machines of yesteryear my desktop is a joy. But a processor capable of tens of billions of operations per second compared to my human senses - nothing should take long enough that I can notice it.

When using Visio and accidentally mousing over the My Shapes menu the whole program locks up for about 10 seconds while it finds zero shapes from a network drive and then doesn't cache the result. While using VMWare vSphere client, almost every click, view change, menu popup, any action at all takes a blinking and a flickering and a delay. Explorer happily does slow folder and drive refreshes and ignores right click popup menu requests on many occasions. IE 8 opening a new tab is a laggy occasion. SQL Server Management Studio 2008 is a blinkenflicker fest all over.

Here and there, slow calls are in UI threads, network requests are blocking, network requests are slow out of all proportion with the amount of data that needs to be transferred due to odd protocols and many layers, crunching data is not offloaded onto other cores, frequent results aren't cached, the spinny circle cursor and the "program is not responding whoops it's back now" affair happen all too often.

I can see two reasons. A) it's hard. B) It's not a priority. I can forgive the iPhone because it mostly works well. I can forgive small companies writing desktop software. I can't forgive the likes of Microsoft and VMWare, because they have masses of cash and eat hard problems for breakfast, so the only conclusion is that they don't care that I get a twinge of reluctance to use their software, a frowny lemon eating face when I wade through it, when I'm drumming my fingers and using the free time to grumble about their software to my colleagues.

Fast responsive small simple software is a joy to use, I am cheered by PuTTY, Paint.NET, 7-zip, VirtualBox, VLC, AnyClient, Vim. Even Adobe deserve praise for the improvements in startup time from Adobe Reader 6 and the plugin fiasco.

VMWare vSphere client, as it fires up the coal boilers and defrosts the Java VM, whips at the tired donkey graph drawing libraries and runs all it's server queries through a dialup connection simulator, oh no. No no no.

If Apple are going to focus on speed, I'm going to focus on giving them my cash. I can feel my mental liking of the iPad converging, decision weightings on it's faults are weakening and it's pros are strengthening, a preliminary RDF field is forming to buffer my perception of the change in my bank account, the justifications are coming more and more easily to the fore.

I will only end up disappointed, apps will chug, serious web pages will lag and layout will take ages, iPhoto will arbitrarily slow while scrolling ... but by then it will be far far too late. :/

A lot of MS software design has been historically clueless about network latency, I'll grant you that. I sometimes joke about imagining a world where the web is built on top of DCOM, where the view in your browser is rendered via object-oriented RPC calls from the server, etc.

Apple are a much more insidious threat, though, in my opinion. One of the reasons I first got into programming was because one of the first computers I got didn't have any I/O other than the keyboard, the monitor and speakers - the tape drive was broken. A flashing BASIC prompt (ultimately MS licensed) greeted me at every power-on. The only way I could do anything with the machine was to write the program myself; and I could keep nothing of what I wrote, and had to write it all again if I wanted it again. Every night I wrote an alarm-clock program to wake me up in time for school the next morning.

Now if I were that age again today, and had an iPhone or iPod touch in my pocket, or god forbid an iPad in my bag, I couldn't even write a program on it, much less save it on the local file system. Apple is almost intrinsically hostile to software engineers, as I see it. Developers are like rodents to be trapped by promises of a slice of market willing (and hopefully forced) to pay for software; but the trap is far tighter than anything MS has ever lain.

> I couldn't even write a program on it, much less save it on the local file system.

Can you not save text files on the iPad?

That's pretty much the only thing you need for a js application that runs in safari (which these days has a wicket fast js interpreter and supports the canvas, webgl, audio & video tags).

No, it's not obvious to me how one writes a JS application, saves it, and runs it on the iPad.

About the only thing I can think of would be:

A website that you go to with a live JS edit/run cycle, saved on the server on the fly, EtherPad style.

An option to have it email the code to your iPad email address as a clickable link which is a javascript bookmarklet.

An option to have it save the javascript as a bookmarklet/link which you can on the home page.

This is a hack on the iPhone - encode a PDF into a Javascript bookmark and sync it to Safari's bookmarks (i.e. http://pimm.wordpress.com/2007/07/18/how-to-read-pdf-files-o... ).

Maybe if the server had a way to remember or reopen and tidy your code it would be closing in on PG's RFS#5.

You can't cron-job anything, and you can't work with any language other than Javascript unless you make a server side to->Javascript compiler for it. Another user suggested that there is now or soon to be inter-app file transfer, so depending on how that is implemented it might open other venues.

2.5 years of a closed phone platform is an insidious threat? Where were you for most of the 2000's?

I predict that within 2 years the iPhone OS will allow you to run unapproved apps provided you click through enough, "Hey, we're warning you! Don't come crying to us when you manage to blow up your dock connector", messages.

iPad isn't a phone. iPod Touch isn't a phone. To the degree that these devices are successful, they will be replacing user-programmable devices from the bottom up.

It's all very well for you to "predict that within 2 years" everything will be fine. That's not the way it is today, and it's not the way it has been in the past. Everything I know about Apple tells me they have no love for developers whatsoever, and that their rise is one of the worst things that could happen to this industry in terms of open platforms. Apple likes their monopolies much, much more than MS does.

Something is only user programmable insofar as the user has the capability to program it.

An open device today still wouldn't be user programmable because most people would not have the ability to do so even if they had the desire. For those people (read >95% of the market), functionality and ease of use are so, SO much more important than theoretical freedom.

Making things friendly to developers necessarily introduces holes and seams.

And seams make the Steve very angry. Very angry, indeed!

It might be a threat to your/our way of life, but I'm not convinced it's a thread overall.

You can't write a program for your TV or Wristwatch, microwave or land line phone, LCD screen menu system or DVD player.

People can't do surgery without planning years in advance and studying for years in specialised schools, and this has been the case for hundreds of years, yet children still grow up to be doctors and surgeons; and all sorts of other professions which don't have free-home-tinkering-kits available.

If "everybody" wants an iPad and "nobody" cares that they can't program on it, then we're the minority in a tyranny of the majority situation and the only way out is having enough money to pay a company to design your own alternative.

It feels like something is really being lost - a lot of humans world wide growing up as content consumers, not realising that if they could shape the right forms, they could do the same kinds of magic themselves - equals not subservients[1].

But is anything really being lost? If you were a kid today would your nightly alarm clock program have the same charms when run up against your mobile phone's built in alarm? Maybe it's time for software development to grow up and realise the days you could build a spreadsheet in your home are gone with the days you could make cough syrup from home, and the industry needs to become a more professional, 'trained adults only' kind of industry.

In the early days of machine code, software was the electric circuits that rich eccentric people built in their labs. Basic was the valve radio circuits that Feynman puzzled over as a kid. C was the 555 timers and 74xx logic gates.

We were hoping that software would be a new kind of material to work with altogether, each iteration building on the previous work so that as it gets more powerful it still presents a small surface area, stays easy for beginners, kids, curious people to put modules together.

Instead, modern software is the integrated circuits that need years of training to use. It didn't become drag-and-drop coding, it became

NSDocument printDocumentWithSettings:showPrintPanel:delegate:didPrintSelector:contextInfo:

Instead of an OLPC which is both hackable device and the result of hacking at itself, we get iPad - you hack on your specialist hackstation (Mac/PC/...) and view in the iPad browser. Like you make 3D renderings in Blender and view them in a picture viewer, or a nationwide phone exchange which ends in a handset with a pad of numbers, like you design paint in a large chemistry lab and it ends up in a small pot with a brush.

Like many other industries.

[1] I twigged the other day that this is a major difference between me and a hobbyist friend of mine. He treats things with interest as if he is an equal and has every right to learn about them, willing to dive into a subject and believe he can get results. I treat things as nuanced and designed by experts, full of details to be cautious of and traps for the beginner, something to worry about and avoid. I like his style.

My PC is my TV and DVD player combined. I don't know what an "LCD screen menu system" is. I don't have a land-line phone; but I can write a program for my phone, and without needing to pay yearly for the privilege.

Or printing: "SampleForm.Print;" in my case, at the extreme (Delphi).

The microwave, I'll grant you. It's handy for heating up tea that's been brewing long enough to cool down too much; that's about it.

You have never used a Nokia N70/N73. I press a button and then go for a coffee break.

> It's not hardware, it's software that matters, it's design.

Well, we are discussing the Daring Fireball post, and Gruber does mention in multiple places 'setting the software aside.' So bringing the software into the discussion is kind of side-stepping a discussion of the actual article. If anything you should be calling Gruber out for ignoring the software, rather than jumping all over the parent poster.

Multi-core processors are plenty useful in a non-multitasking environment. A single process with many threads is sped up by having multiple cores. Apple is definitely interested in multi-core processors, look at Grand Central on OS X. I would argue that it is one of the most interesting approaches to multi threaded/multi core programs in recent OS history.

multi-core is also easier to scale on power efficiency -- turning off cores when speed isn't needed.

It's not true that Apple isn't doing multitasking. They do plenty of multitasking. They just don't expose it to third party applications.

What nobody talks about is the impact iPad could have on the data-entry / industrial market. I'm pretty certain that I'll be buying a bunch of the 16GB $499 iPads for my job (pharma manufacturing). Make a simple web-app for collecting data and the iPad replaces paper easier than any other 4x more expensive tablet. No need to setup or install software or custom apps: Safari + default onscreen keyboard works just fine.

As I was tracking the press conference on the live blogs I had the same thoughts as you did.

One of my larger clients is a factory setting using a custom built web app for, among many things, inventory control. When it comes time to do physical hard counts we've been stuck using crappy Dell laptops and pads of legal paper. The 16 gig iPad is perfectly priced and seems more than capable of handling our web app. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities for the iPad in industrial/factory settings.

We did our full physical inventory using MC70s http://www.barcodesinc.com/symbol/mc70.htm last month and had absolutely no problems. I bought a total of twelve Wifi MC70s at a cost of $1600 each. I would have absolutely no problem buying 20 iPads if they can replace the mountains of paperwork that need to be filled in manually for every single production run of a pharma product. I would have bought a CrunchPad for $300-ish but I'm willing to pay more for iPad because of the battery life and quality. Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB.

> Now I just need to find cheap barcode scanners that plug into the 30pin instead of USB.

That's going to be tough. Apple controls the 30-pin connector and I haven't heard of any barcode scanners. You're probably better off looking for Bluetooth. Since it supports BT keyboards, you could likely find one that pairs as a keyboard. Won't be cheap, but hey neither were the MC70s.

There is a 30pin -> USB connector accessory with iPad by default. That will help with the interface, but how will you get data out of it ?

Google Docs

>There is a 30pin -> USB connector accessory with iPad by default. That will help with the interface, but how will you get data out of it ?

Really, a web enabled tablet computer can't use google docs to solve this problem?

The issue isn't getting the SKUs off the iPad, it's getting them off the scanner and onto the iPad. The iPad includes a USB connector to charge and sync, not to access devices with. There aren't public APIs to access USB devices--the accessories you see that use the 30-pin go the other way (getting music off typically).

Well, the question how to get data off of it. Which I answered and got hammered on and now sit in negative karma territory for my trouble (thanks guys! downvote abuse is awesome!). But whatever, apparently actual answers aren't valued.

Getting data onto them (such as scanning barcodes) is a separate question.

Apple claims all of the existing app store apps will work on the iPad. But I wonder how many require things like the camera to function?

http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/05/red-laser-the-first-accur...

That number is actually probably a bit lower due to "broken by design" problems like this.

I'd wager that we'll see an iPad camera accessory offered within 6-12 months that connects nicely to the 30-pin.

Is there a reason they can't input on the iPhone/iPod Touch? It seems like the iPad (or frankly, any tablet) would be tough to enter data in unless you're sitting down.

FDA forms are complex: http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/00/01/0001d76b.gif

Much easier to have a large 1024x768 screen than try to fit everything in a tiny 480x320.

If you go Android you're halfway there :) I'm very envious of the Droid's 480 x 854 screen.

Update: Just noticed you're across the bridge from me. If you ever need help on the data entry web apps, let me know. I'm working on a similar type thing for a group of medical imaging centers locally (Palm Harbor, St Pete, etc). That's actually what I have the Droid for.

I use my iPhone when I'm on site almost exclusively but the employees at this location probably aren't savvy enough to work with the tiny screen. I'm pretty sure the larger iPad display would eliminate a lot of problems that a tiny iPod touch screen and keyboard would create.

why this and not one of the other significantly cheaper linux/arm tablets?

if nothing else they would be less likely to grow a pair of legs.

1. Much much better touchscreen

2. Better on-screen keyboard

3. Safari

4. Ease of setup/use

5. 802.11n

6. Low Cost/Performance

7. Quality/stability that I expect from Apple

8. Longetivity

9. Battery life

10. Coolness :)

What about an iPod touch?

Data entry on an iPhone-sized device isn't as efficient as a pen/paper/clipboard, so you'll just end up using a pen/paper/clipboard, and then transferring data into a workstation later. The iPad looks like it could be different—there's just more raw room to place/space the virtual keys—but we'll see; it could be just as crappy.

In summary: It's worth spending hundreds of dollars to not have to use Linux / the kinds of devices Linux is associated with.

The message the desktop Linux community is refusing to learn from. At least half your points are fairly directly based on the state of Linux at the moment (e.g. Safari, ease of setup) and the other half linked to the state of the ecosystem surrounding Linux which pushes for cheaper and hackier solutions (wifi drivers, perception of coolness, implementation of software and hardware quality).

Bug in iPad: 1,000,000 million hits on Google with 1,000 solutions

Bug in any of the other Nix tablets: 12 hits, all of them from people like me asking for solutions

Question I have to ask myself is do I want to save $2k upfront and spend countless hours some day in the future supporting the device or just pay a higher price and get a stable appliance that I don't have to worry about.

Bug in iPad: 1,000,000 million hits on Google with 1,000 solutions

I call myth. That's only true when you happen to hit a bug that apple was generous enough to fix. Otherwise you're not only on your own but usually you can't do anything about it.

There are plenty of examples, like this gem, which is afaik still unfixed (after 6 months or something): http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10365239-263.html

How do I know about it? Because I'm affected and it forces me to reboot my snow leopard every once in a while. And going by the number of reports I gather it's not just me. The related apple forum thread has hundreds of posts...

Bug in any of the other Nix tablets: 12 hits, all of them from people like me asking for solutions

That really depends on how popular your device is and how obscure a bug you hit. If the tablet is running linux then most bugs will likely be in software components that are also used on other hardware with a much larger userbase. And most OSS projects, at least those surrounding the kernel, have quite active communities, with mailing lists and open bug trackers.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that there are reasons to go for the iPad over other tablets - but this is not one of them.

Counterpoint: my mac stopped seeing my iPhone. There was no advice on the internet on how to fix it. I'm completely lost at what to do. I can't upgrade the phone's software, and can't load new songs, I can't backup my phone :-(

Go to Apple's support forum for iPhone and detail your problem.

You'll get plenty of help there.

(Of course, first scan the forum for similar problems and use the given advice.)

Happened to me a month ago. There was in fact a lot of information on the net on how to fix it, but none of the suggestions worked. In the end only a full reinstall of OS X (done for unrelated reasons) fixed it for me.

Firefox runs on Linux, it is just as good as Safari. Setup shouldn't be an issue as I'd expect it to be pre-installed on a Linux tablet. Don't know the devices you are talking about, though.

Firefox is significantly slower than chrome and safari in my experience.

I find it hard to believe that with today's dualcore-multi-GHZ CPUs there can be significant speed differences in rendering a web page.

Chrome is perceptibly faster than Safari which is perceptibly faster than Firefox which is ridiculously faster than Internet Explorer. But there we are.

Could it all be perception? Like maybe Safari and Chrome make smoother animations to hide the loading times? I seem to remember there was a similar thing with menus in OS X vs Windows (or Linux?) - one was actually faster, but the other was perceived faster because they animated how the menu items would unfold.

Also there are of course issues with preloading the browser, which would (unfairly) reduce startup times.

It's a meaningless distinction. I don't want a browser which measures fast but feels slow anymore than I want speakers which measure 'loud' but I can't hear them.

My thought was that if it's perception, it might vary between people. Some might feel Browser A is faster, others might perceive Browser B as faster.

Yeah it's shocking but it's true, isn't it? I mean, everyone who's using both Firefox and Chrome/Safari experiences it every day.

...but Chrome runs on linux too. http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux

> Firefox runs on Linux, it is just as good as Safari

This is the problem with Linux right here... (and I say this as someone who's used Linux as a primary desktop for years and eventually went to a Mac)

When you start saying things like X is just as good as Y, it isn't.

People that choose to use Safari have a very specific reason for doing so. Usually it's because it's well integrated into Mac system. Not in an IE integrated way, but a "it fits with everything else" kind of way. If you choose between Firefox and Safari on a Mac, the biggest difference is speed. Safari feels faster (I don't know if it is or not).

Similarly Chrome on Mac feels faster than Safari. Maybe it's just because it's a little more minimalist right now.

On Linux, no one has the authority or cares enough to say "this is the way we are going to do things...". So you end up with a ton of half assed solutions to every problem. Sometimes those are good (Firefox as an example). Sometimes they are adequate (OpenOffice). Sometimes, no matter how hard they keep trying, they can't keep up with the competition (Gimp).

So, yes... Firefox runs on Linux. But no, it's not as good as Safari.

Yes, I know there are people that choose to use Firefox on a Mac (my wife as an example). I still maintain that Safari provides a better "experience".

It seems to be primarily a matter of taste with Safari vs FF. Except on Linux you don't have Safari as an option.

I also stick with FF on the Mac. I have tried Safari briefly a couple of times, but I didn't have the patience yet to try discover any features that might be better. It's also what you are used to, maybe...

> 3. Safari

What is significantly better about Safari than Chrome/Chromium? (Please don't say something about multi-touch interface b/c that's a different issue; a multi-touch interface is a global operating system/hardware issue, not an issue with a particular piece of software)

"if nothing else they would be less likely to grow a pair of legs."

So the best way to keep theft down is to give your employee's less than the best tool for the job? When you think about it that is almost perverse.

The best tool for the job is not always the one that fetches the highest market price

People don't steal things from their job because they're better for doing their jobs. People steal things from their jobs because they're fun or useful outside of work. Configuring a device so as to seem too work-specific to steal could be an advantage.

I'm wondering how much the iPad will be like a scaled up iPhone OS - because as a smartphone which syncs with Exchange, you can force policies on the iPhone from the server to require a PIN, allow remote data wipe, encrypt data, and so on - but you can't do that to a Windows desktop with Outlook. I don't know if you can to a Mac with Snow Leopard.

If this is going to have OS X/iPhone software, email, a wifi and data connection then it will likely have an ActiveSync connection to Exchange so the policies might be a possibility to keep your data safe(r) in the event of an unscheduled malfunction of an, ahem, ambulatorial nature.

It runs iPhone OS 3.2 with very minimal changes from 3.1.

Draw your own conclusions.

(Can't say more without risking NDA breakage.)

A few others:

-Standardization: Same software everywhere you go, consistent UI -Ease of deployment: Restore a preconfigured iTunes backup to each iPad, done. -VPN support: VPN into the corporate network when you're out of the office for secure access -Exchange support: Sadly still a very important feature -Ease of use

Has anybody given a firm release date that one can believe in as to when I'll actually be able to go down my local store and buy one of these rumored cheap linux pads? With Apple I at least know when, what, where and how much.

They have been on the market for a few years now so feel free to wander on in any time you feel like it.

Really, I've certainly never seen a sub $500 10" Linux based Arm powered tablet in any of the computer or electronic stores I've ever visited. Links?

You can get an intel one- the EEE has a touchscreen version.

What nobody talks about?!

This thing only got announced 5 minutes ago.

But people have been discussing for well over a year. Not one prominent bloggers/journalist mentioned the industrial applications. 802.11n + 10hr battery life + standardized browser like Safari is awesome for writing data-collection web-apps.

OK, I agree. You're right. Just sounded funny.

I guess Apple's strong B2C orientation & the non-tinkerability of the device has something to do with that. Can you run the webapp on a local server, for example?

Why not? WiFi links up to the local network; access the server based on an internal server.

I can already do that via the iPhone.

Agreed. Another overlooked option is you can easily get people to physically sign things on it. That's a potential tipping point for a huge number of forms that are still on paper.

sign with your finger? That's probably harder than signing with a mouse.

Apparently there are styluses that will work with capacitive screens.

http://robrohan.com/2009/02/27/diy-iphone-stylus-the-free-ca...

Why not sign in with a camera?

There is an article for that: http://www.executivehm.com/news/itablet-in-healthcare/

Should be an awesome opportunity for WuFoo.

If you listen carefully, some people have been talking about exactly this for quite a while. Mostly in terms of hospitals.

The question is--how do you lock down this device so people aren't surfing the web or playing games on them? I work on EDC devices for pharma, and this is the single biggest issue for us when choosing hardware--we need the ability to put the device into kiosk mode.

That said, if Apple opened this particular bit of functionality up for the enterprise, we would be all over this device, particularly the 3G version.

You can lock down quite a lot with the Parental Controls in the iPhone OS

Sweeter still is if the iPad has the Newton print handwriting recognition software (which was much better than the cursive handwriting recognition). I heard that many a doctor were upset when Jobs pulled the Newton from the market.

Couldn't agree with you more. I am part of a small composites manufacturing company, and I can't wait to put them up all over our shop. It's going to be awesome!

Can't you use a form in iWork Numbers for that?

I think the iPad will be successful but it will have more of an iPod success curve versus an iPhone out-of-the-gate smash hit curve. I believe there are some pieces that aren't in place yet. I think eventually, to hit the magic price point, Apple needs to find a way to subsidize the iPad without a cellular carrier. I suspect that will be in the form of an iTunes subscription program. Shave $100 off the cost to build it and subsidize it by $200 via an $8/month charge built into the subscription program. All you can eat books, movies, music and TV. $199 out the door. That's the point where everyone will want an iPad the same way the iPhone became hugely successful at the same price point. $499 is a very reasonable starting point for now. I think they'll easily sell 3-5 million of them this year. The last thought I have is that Apple's hype machine probably got a little ahead of themselves here. CNN had the iPad release as their Breaking News story for a couple hours today. That's probably a sign that your hype factor was impossibly high. That puts you firmly into backlash territory. I would expect to see another round of features/enhancements/deals shortly before it's release -- probably in conjunction with iPhone OS 4.

For $199 (clean, no subscription) it might be worth having on the coffee table. I guess I can give it a few revs like I did the iPhone.

Yeah, this is a 1.0 release And it will get better after a few years of field experience. I think that after the level of hype we saw, it had to be a let down.

But, I do think this will be a hit for some unexpected applications. I could see deploying one almost anywhere a stylish but not terribly powerful terminal is needed. A lot of salespeople will be buying these.

To most technically inclined people the iPad won't have much appeal beyond being a shiny toy. But to many professional people who are not technically inclined it will be a useful tool that feeds their need to feel in control of technology rather than at the mercy of it.

Didn't it take until iPhone 3G for the iPhone to really fly off the shelves?

I am a big fan of apple product and I don't wanna be rude to the author, mostly because I don't know much about him. But this post reminds me of a typical obnoxious apple fanboy.

"Its not only good, it awesome, super, duper good."

Lets not get carried away now. We know almost nothing about the processor. We don't know how it will compare against a similar range intel processor. We don't know how much the ipad OS (which obviously isn't _exactly_ the same as iphone OS) was optimized for this processor.

Most importantly we can only speculate about apple's _real_ reason for going into chip making business, it might not be because they have a better product - but in the long run it might be cheaper for them to make their own.

Gruber, the author is the alpha dog of mac fanboys.

He sets the tone for the rest of the tribe. He is very good in what he does.

What you see may be the remnants of the reality distortion field he was exposed to today ;)

Does just the word "fan" even exist in tech circles anymore? According to my definition Gruber is by no means an Apple fanboy. Why? Because he is not scared to criticize Apple and most of his theses are objectively credible. Just because he likes Apple and often writes rebuttals to pundits who just don't get Apple (or more likely are trolling for hits) doesn't make him a fanboy.

There's no doubt that the Apple fanboys all read him, but to call the man himself a fanboy is to drain the word of its whole connotation.

"Apple fanboy" is kind of the generic term. I think "fawning sycophant" and "groveling lick-spittle" describe Gruber better.

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords

Well chosen response. Guess I deserve the down mods of the grey t-shirt and commie star brigade!

Article: ~"Apple is taking computing away from the focus on tech specs and focusing on the whole package. They've made their own CPU, they've put deep thought into the software, and it shows, this thing is fast".

You: ~"Hold on, we don't know anything about the processor's specs. It can't feel fast to use for the end user until we can benchmark the CPU against an Intel CPU".

Me: While knowing about the processor might be interesting, if Apple have combined software and hardware to make a fast to use device, what the numbers show the raw hardware is capable of is rather irrelevant - even if they were extra bad, that would just show the software was extra carefully tuned.

Not sure you read the same article I read. Some exact quote:

"But: everyone I spoke to in the press room was raving first and foremost about the speed. None of us could shut up about it. It feels impossibly fast. (And our next thought: What happens if Apple has figured out a way to make a CPU like A4 that fits in an iPhone? If they pull that off for this year’s new iPhone, look out.)"

"Apple doesn’t just own and control a mobile CPU, they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. Software aside (which is a huge thing to put aside), it may well be that no other company could make a device today matching the price, size, and performance of the iPad. They’re not getting into the CPU business for kicks, they’re getting into it to kick ass."

Now that i reread the whole thing, the author sounds extremely delusional and I am tempted to question his tech knowledge and what he knows about the hardware besides being a raging apple fan boy.

So do you contend that there are other companies that could build a device comparable to the iPad?

Who are they? Why aren't we hearing about their competitive offerings?

http://gizmodo.com/5440207/netbook-tablets-get-capacitive-mu... looks pretty interesting.

You can argue the details about whether an atom chip is a good alternative, but as a whole it's certainly in the right size, weight, battery life, touchscreen technology, modern OS and price ranges to make a worthy comparison.

> We don't know how it will compare against a similar range intel processor...

Who cares? The consumers certainly don't. Hell, I don't. There are people out there who have used the device that say it's tremendously fast, not laggy. I don't care if it's using a 68000, or the latest from intel, or trained dust mites--it's the sizzle, not the steak.

Looking at the big picture the thing that really stands out to me is the iWork demo. The built-in apps were a bit ho-hum because they are very basic applications like most of Apple's other bundled apps on other platforms but the iWork demo... You've got basically a near desktop quality application here. Look at all the new UI widgets, toolbars, drop down font selectors, a general purpose file-insertion tool using media browsers, a windowing system, context sensitive keyboards, etc. I can imagine we're going to see a lot of iPad applications that are near desktop quality. The first generation of powerful multi-touch software. This is where the people saying "it's just a big iPod Touch" are totally missing the point. iPad applications are going to be serious, nearly fully featured, applications.

Agreed - I thought this was pretty damn impressive. I wonder how they're handling the file system behind the scenes. What will be the interface to save and open files? Some new file manager in itunes? A new hybrid interface pulling in elements of OS X?

they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world.

Let's not get carried away. It's only fair to make that statement once Apple DOES cram the A4 into an iPhone and blows the competition out of the water. (I'm assuming that's the plan, but until then, the comparison implied by calling it a "mobile CPU" is a bit pointless).

I have no idea how John Gruber could possibly think he has a remotely informed opinion on what constitutes the "best mobile CPU in the world".

"... Steve has a reality distortion field.' 'A what?' 'A reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.' ..."

Gruber needs some grounding against the "Reality Distortion Field" ~ http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...

I'm a bit surprised though - I've only read Daring Fireball over the past year or so, since I started doing iPhone development, and it's usually pretty rational. I did a double-take when I read this one (and the words "reality distortion field" did cross my mind).

He's a blogger.

"He also said that when you consider MacBooks as “mobile” devices, Apple generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world" hits the bullshit alarm.

Well, when you consider BMW cars as "mobile" devices, BMW generates more revenue from mobile hardware than any other company in the world. C'mon, MacBooks as mobile devices? And only comparing with real mobile-only sales?

Also, the tone of the article sounds even a bit religious: "This is something they want us to notice". Looks like one of those apocalypse cults after their expected end-of-the-world day blew off: a bit disappointed but they keep looking for a sign, because there must be one.

> After using the iPhone so much for two and a half years, I’ve become accustomed to web pages rendering (relative to the Mac) slowly. On the iPad, they seem to render nearly instantly. (802.11n Wi-Fi helps too.)

...but the wi-fi doesn't actually help as much as you'd think. If you've ever tethered a 3G iPhone, the speed difference between web browsing on the phone, and web browsing through the phone is palpable; at this point, upgrading cell networks is a bit silly, as every phone in the market is too CPU-limited to render pages as fast as they're pulled down. Getting the A4 into the iPhone would likely be a bigger subjective speed boost than putting 3G in ever was.

Exactly. I doubt adding n over the iPhone's g did much to increase the browser's speed because the iPhone couldn't even consume all of g's throughput.

I wonder how much the decision not to have multitasking was influenced by the desire to have the ipad look fast?

Probably none. Multi-task, if it comes, will come on the iPhone and iPad at the same time. They either aren't ready to figure out how it fits into the OS model, or they've decided it shouldn't for now.

I was wondering if it would work creating a second type of app, a Service, that has no gui and only runs in the background. They'd have an api that allows them to communicate with a regular app. This way, something like Pandora could be split in two, with the background service running constantly, but the gui closing as usual.

This make it easier to manage background tasks, and also eliminate the problem of users leaving all their apps running. I guess if the makers of a Service decided to make their api public, other people could develop alternate front ends for it as well.

I think Apple has decided they don't like multitasking on its merits. You can only do one thing at a time, so why run more than one application?

Instead, they're putting their effort into making application launch and exit very fast, and cautioning developers that they should save all important state, and restore it all next time.

I think so, too. If you think about what is making Android devices run so slow, it's almost always some misbehaving background services. Unless there isn't some smarter way controlling the scheduling of foreground applications, there won't be multitasking and fast speed at the same time with a comparable CPU.

Claiming they have the best CPU after a couple of minutes testing the device as an end user seems way over the top. It's also not likely that the same CPU could simply be put into a phone.

On the contrary, it is extremely likely that the A4 will be in the next iPhone. The CPU architecture is the same (ARM) and the peripherals are the same (video, etc.). It is an Apple ARM-SoC[1] rather than a Samsung/PortalPlayer/TI/whoever ARM-SoC[2]. The functionality is a perfect match, the physical size is likely to be a close match, the speed is much better, and the power efficiency appears to be similar or better (the iPad undoubtedly has a much larger battery).

Look at the heritage: PA-Semi created a remarkably fast, remarkably low power PowerPC architecture SoC. They are very, very good. Apple bought them so that they could use that power, speed, and efficiency knowledge to create the A4. Reports are that they used the fast ARM Cortex A9 core and did their magic on the peripheral parts of the SoC. That is exactly what all the other ARM licensees are doing, except the others (arguably) don't have the same talent level as the PA-Semi engineers.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip

[2] http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumer_electronics/i...

They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing. In the pre-taped video Apple showed, Bob Mansfield said of the iPad, “No one else could do it.” Only Apple.

The Windows XP tablets really were quite impressive after about the 3rd iteration of the software. I have an old tc1100, and it's very nicely designed. Surfing, I must say is a pleasure on the thing. They also had Zinio magazines pacakged with the install. Of course the whole Windows software catalog is quite usable on the thing. But Windows Tablets went the way of the Amiga and a bunch of things by Atari. It's one thing to make great technology. It's another thing to market it. Apple can do both. Or rather, they can do 5 things very well:

    - Hardware
    - Software
    - Human Interface Design
    - Marketing
    - User/Developer Ecosystem

If they weren't able to do all 5 of these very well, it wouldn't matter how great the devices are. Other companies do the hardware & the software. Some are even pretty good at the marketing. Very few companies do all 5 of these things as well as Apple does.

(You can think of the success of both Firefox and Ubuntu as the introduction of good HID polish and Marketing to communities that already had the Software and a good User/Developer ecosystem.)

The problem with computers and "feeling fast" though is that it tends to wear off.

Until you use one that doesn't.

The bragging could also be an attempt to separate the continued success of Apple and the employment of Steve Jobs.

A post entitled The iPad Big Picture seems to be lacking in something that I would consider to be part of a big picture: what will the product be used for?

Is it intended to be a replacement for the laptop? Or is it a supplement to the laptop, filling a previously unseen niche between the phone and the laptop?

Personally I think it's a complimentary device. Some apps are just going to work better with a multi-touch interface than a traditional keyboard/mouse setup. Judging by the amount of new UI elements it appears you can write some serious, near desktop quality, applications for the iPad. I think a very common usage scenario is going to be using the iPad in conjunction with your laptop or desktop. For example, I think multi-touch web browsing is a much better experience than a keyboard/mouse browser experience. It's just easier to move around pages and zoom in. If I had an iPad sitting on my desk next to my keyboard and mouse I suspect a good chunk of my browsing would be done on the iPad.

Looking at it, honestly, it's something I'd use instead of a laptop for a lot of cases, from sitting around in a coffeeshop to catch up on feeds to going to conferences (since it can do Keynote, which is the only thing I currently actually need a laptop for).

The highlighting stuff in Keynote (telestrator mode!) looks seriously awesome.

Imagine you're in a VC meeting and you're doing financial projections. You could all stare at a big screen, or you could put one of these down in the middle of the table, say "here, let's work on it together!" and you're away.

It's all about the form-factor and the utter reliability. This is a great replacement for a road-warrior meeting laptop - what the MacBook Air was trying to be - and it's the ideal computer to buy for your granny or your kid brother who wants to check their email and write the odd letter.

(Much less use if what you do on the move is program, but that's OK. It's not aimed at you.)

Pretty much. I almost never do actual coding at a conference; I do my talks, I take notes in other sessions, I read interesting links and occasionally pop in to IRC. I don't need a laptop for that, but since the laptop's the only thing I have which does all those things I end up taking it.

Plus the iPad would probably be a nicer device to have with me on the plane...

Wow! I was sure he would finally have something fair, balanced, or even perhaps negative to say about Apple! I am totally shocked that he found some obscure point about the iPad to harp on about rather than mentioning the many obvious negatives.

Yeah, Gruber's never criticized anything Apple's done.

For example, he wouldn't dream of criticizing the App Store or its policies the way this guy did ("Rules you don’t know about are scary"? "To act fairly would be to follow the rules. To act capriciously is to be the rules"? Nobody who's been in the Reality Distortion Field would write that!):

http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/the_fear

http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/wikipedia_app_age_ratings

http://daringfireball.net/2008/09/app_store_exclusion

>They’re Microsoft and Intel rolled into one when it comes to mobile computing.

Anyone else get a chill when reading this?

They're not making their own CPU, their just licensing ARM tech and adding a few spins to the thing.

In the same way stock car racing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_car_racing is just taking stock cars and turning them into race cars.

Can we go back to how off this thing's name is?

Sure. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/01/22/canvas