"The iPad is a LEGO set that can only be assembled into what's drawn on the box" | Hacker News Reader

"The iPad is a LEGO set that can only be assembled into what's drawn on the box"

piorkowski.ca

38 pointspshc33 comments

The average consumer doesn't understand the current open model of computing and some are very afraid of it. Let's just accept both models are going to co-exist and there's nothing wrong with that. When people say devices like the iPad are the future they are probably just link baiting. Devices like the iPad are simply adding diversity to the market to reflect the huge influx of new consumers with different needs. The PC operating systems we use today are all based on usage assumptions of 20-30 years ago when computers were primarily expensive scientific & business tools.

The "won't someone think of the children" argument makes me laugh, a little, but it also dismays me.

There are children out there who are the next Jon Ives and Steve Jobs - people who will take the raw materials they have and produce what they consider to be high art, the best they can make with the technology and materials of the time.

Nothing has or should stop Apple from producing the absolute best examples of their vision. Nothing. And making something that is a commercial success is a part of that expression - one-off technological marvels are not as impressive as something that works for real people in the real world.

I think it is inspiring for the young programmers and designers and Make-subscribers out there to look at this thing and see what is possible to create. It is not necessary that they may take it apart and it is not a feature. They are not selling a toolbox, nor a platform for development.

If you think that the world is headed towards a computing world where no toolboxes or platforms are available, I think you need to make a better case. I see things getting better, not worse.

Apple try to make high art, with technology. To do that in the long term, you have to do so within constraints - commercial, technological, market, content, etc. They have been remarkably successful at doing so within those constraints, with some errors (eg the cube).

I am pleased that Apple made the iPad. It looks beautiful, and I am sure it functions well. I think it is something for humans to wonder at and be proud of - that this is the age we live in, and artisans exist who can design and produce such a device. I can't imagine myself buying one though. It's kind of like a Ferrari - I appreciate it, but it has nothing to do with me. And I wouldn't try to tinker with it. And, I'm not worried that all cars will one day be Ferraris.

If I could meet with DaVinci, and show him one example of our age, I'd show him an iPad. I think he would like it.

The iPad has a standards-compliant web browser. You can make whatever site you want and it will be accessible on the iPad.

And if only Heroku still had their original product still integrated (a web based code editor), we'd be all set.

I write and run code every day, but rarely in front of the machine it executes on — even the editor isn't running on the machine I'm typing on. I live in browser tabs and terminal emulators displaying remote GNU Screen sessions.

When I have a terminal emulator compiled for Google NaCL (even if I have to port it myself), I'll be living exclusively in browser tabs.

Have you looked at Bespin? https://bespin.mozillalabs.com/

Hm, does it let you access the touch screen functionality?

Yes. For a slightly unusual demo of this functionality, in October 2008, we released our "DIY iPhone-controlled R/C car" video tutorial:

http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/rc_car/

in which we used the iPhone Javascript API to capture touch/drag events, and sent them (via a laptop, and then a microcontroller) to a little toy car's transmitter. No SDK use or jailbreaking required at all. However, we had to rely on proprietary Javascript events, and had to include a laptop on ad-hoc wifi to relay the messages. Apple's restrictions certainly lead to major tradeoffs, but we were able to build something pretty neat and accessible regardless.

As a side note, they've locked down both the dock connector and the Bluetooth interface very tightly. Just buying the $99 dev license doesn't allow you to develop for either of those interfaces -- they have a separate "Made for iPod" program for that. The $99 isn't an insurmountable barrier for hobbyists who really want to tinker, but the "Made for iPod" certification probably is. (Some companies are using the audio input/output to hack around this restriction.)

Yes, there's a pretty comprehensive multitouch API available in JavaScript. See http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2008/07/10/touching-and-gesturin...

I'm extracting a jQuery plugin from my go program, it's here:

http://github.com/raganwald/iGesture

Note that when I use the word "gesture," I am using it the way the HCI community uses it, to refer to strokes and combinations of strokes. iGesture is useful for implementing features like deleting things by "scrubbing" the screen, navigation by swiping the screen, and so forth.

There are several dubious links in the chain of reasoning here.

First, because many, including Steve Jobs, say that this is a game changer, that it is going to make the laptop obsolete, it is going to change the future of computing forever. So it may be.

Second, therefore, because it is a closed platform, and because it is going to change the future of computing forever, when you buy one for your kid, all possible learning about how to hack things will instantly die in that child.

Third, who here learned, on their own, by using something in exactly the way that the manufacturer intended? I don't see all that many hands up.

I think kids or adults learn new ways of doing things by hacking. That is, they pick up some device and ask "hmm, I wonder what will happen if i connect these two wires".

So let me ask a semi-rhetorical question: Is there a way a kid can learn from an iPad by using it in a way that it was not intended? Of course there is. Are you telling me that there is no 8-year old that will find a way to use the iPad that will surprise his parents or peers?

Does anyone remember tube radios? I do (at the risk of dating myself), and I remember the sounds of doom when transistors came out. No user serviceable parts inside, says the label on the back. So has experimentation in Ham Radio died out? They build and launch satellites for goodness sake. New modes of digital communication, like WSJT (by Joe Taylor, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of a type of pulsar) to bounce signals off of meteor trails, or PSK31, a very narrow-band keyboard-to-keyboard mode of communication, or Cliff Stoll hooking up a kit from Ramsay Electronics to his Macintosh to graph the speed of cars going past a kid-filled street to help petition the city to put speed bumps there.

Fourth, where new ideas come from is not readily anticipated. And that is the point. The net of the article is that iPad totally locks down any possible avenue of learning for kids. I don't think so. If I were raising kids today, I would be much more concerned about their exposure to television.

I think people making these points are forgetting something crucial; nowadays consumers vastly out number the hackers.

All of those people will never have a jot of interest in how their device works - they just want it to be slick, look good and "just work".

It stands to reason that platforms for consumers will be bigger and more full of hype; simply because the market is bigger and the users are less cynical about the tech.

It does not mean that hackable platforms are going to disappear or become inaccessible.

There are plenty of practical reasons to think that the iPad (or a device like it) will be a large success. I completely agree that there is a target market that wants a slick looking device that just works, and Apple is positioning itself to go after that market. Most of those people don't care in the slightest if they have to go to Apple to get a battery replaced, they'd probably want to buy a new device at that point anyways.

I think the concern here is the precedent that Apple's success in this market would mean. Apple is notoriously hostile towards their development community, and is providing increasingly locked down platforms which make them the gate keepers for certain types of innovation (want integrated voice recognition on the iPad - wait for Apple to do it). If Apple succeeds here, others will feel they can create the same sort of locked platforms. You can already see this happening.

There's also a concern] for the future developers. If their homework requires a word processor and a web browser, then their parents might never see the need to buy them a general purpose computer.

True, especially because an iPad will not replace the PC/Mac under the desk: Where do you let your children (or for this example teenagers) play gamey like CSS, Gothic 3 and so forth? Certainly not on the iPad. It is the same story with video encoding, rendering or even burning a cd/dvd. The """young hackers""" will still have their platforms to play with. Even if somebody only had an iPad, he might become a web security geek.

Exactly. And we have systems like lego mindstorm that are designed to get people interested in hacking. The universe of possibilities is expanding, not contracting.

And nothing, not a single obsolete machine, ever truly disappears. I'm confident that COBOL will still be running somewhere 2250.

> Mac OS X comes with a command-line terminal and a variety of other ways to mess with and, yes, break your system.

When I got my hands on mac for the first time I was frustrated by user interface, but when I finally located terminal I brightened up "Hey. It's unix. I know this!"

I can't even imagine how terrible would be to have cool device that can do much but it's sealed from tinkering.

[My response became a blog post]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1240254

It takes about 5 minutes to jailbreak an iPhone. I expect similar, and add'l on the iPad. So enough with these "the future of computing / young programmers" are at risk because of Apple.

I agree completely, maybe because I just don't understand their argument. It may not be as open but having young people see such an exciting and well-polished gadget shows them what's possible and that they can help build something better someday. There will always be people that by their very nature need to know how things work, even if it takes a long time to figure out. Seems inspirational to me.

I hear what your saying, But if you look at the iPad as the future of computing it does seem a bit bleak, what you can do with a full featured laptop is much different then what you can do with an iPad. sure you might be able to unlock it or mod it in some way but I would see it more as novelty hacking compared to what you can do with your laptop or desktop computer. an iPad is just a simplified computer made for a specific kind of interaction, not nearly as dynamic as the "stove"

It's not like Apple is going to win 100% of the market, and the other competitors are not following suit with a closed system.

We'll always have choice - Google's entire strategy was being the opposite - open source, open apps, etc. There are dozens, if not hundreds of Android tablets, and concepts coming in the next 18 months, not to mention Windows 7 mobile etc

There are dozens, if not hundreds of Android tablets, and concepts coming in the next 18 months, not to mention Windows 7 mobile etc

The Windows 7 mobile platform is just as closed as iPhones and iPads, and Apple is trying to have Android shut down by the courts. If they get their way, there will be no viable open alternatives for mobile computing.

So laptops will magically cease to exist?

They'll increasingly be niche products. Once there's a solution to the limited screen size of phones, they'll replace laptops in most scenarios.

Most of the scenarios I envision for laptops involve typing without a desk (thus the need for the supporting base of your lap.) I don't think anything is really replacing them for these.

poof. they're all gone. i'll wait here while you check

Exactly. I think after the last 20 years of Microsoft utter-domination, we're used to the idea that there will be one and only one winner and that it will control everything to the marginalization of everything else. On these devices that are primarily used to connect to Internet services (for consumption and creation), I don't see that as nearly so big of a concern.

Think of the iPad as the Macintosh 128k. It provides a glimpse of how we will interact with computers in the future, yet at the moment is undeveloped and lacks the features and software of mainstream computers. The Mac 128k lacked a hard drive, multitasking, enough RAM to be usable, and the huge range of productivity software available on MS-DOS machines. Over time, the Mac (and Windows) matured and the feature set exceeded that of command line driven OSs.

I think one of the first points made in this article was that the author was not criticizing the iPad's lack of current features, but rather the philosophy behind it and the implications that arise from its widespread adoption.

"The iPad is a LEGO set that can only be assembled into the (at the moment) 150,000 pictures drawn on the box (with many more to come)".

Fixed it for you.

How is the iPad any more "oppressive" to developers than the iPhone?

Another semi-intellectual with a gripe against Apple hits the whine. Sigh. When ever will they accept that tablets were never aimed at being devices for computing, but instead consoles for linking to computer-driven societal interests? Until Apple came along with their tablet, the same bunch had nothing to say, but now they are all just performing the same complaints, like sad songs with nothing to say.

Regardless of what tablets are being aimed at, or who their target market is, it's hard to deny that they have an affect on the computing industry.

Oh god stop moaning. Please.

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