Hacker News Reader

Comment by moblivu | Hacker News Reader

The problem with Steve Jobs and the Apple gang is that, they indeed innovate first, but then they stop. The iPad was a revolutionary approach at tablet computing, even if the device was quite dumb. But making your second iPad exactly the same (sorry but a cover and slimmer does not equal innovation) that is just plain ridiculous, especially when they have the capability to make something incredible.

They are just taking advantage of their brand right now, like if they were still the old Apple that struggled to innovate!

The vision and execution is there, it's still Apple, but now they are just taking advantage of their market!

View on HN

Whoa slow down there.

This is the company that was nearly down and out and then came up with the iPod. Then the iPhone and iPad.

How many product categories do you want them to come up with (ok maybe not come up with, but you know what I mean) before Apple is innovative? A company is lucky if they come up with one innovative consumer product and corners a lion's share of the profits.

Besides, they came out with the iPad last year. Their time machine needs some time to recharge before they can pull more gadgets from the future.

To fairly clarify, while they may not have created any new product categories with the above examples, they certainly did succeed in redefining product categories, in addition to dominating. :) Perhaps the biggest thing the iPod had that other music players didn't have was a successful online music store. Likewise, iPhone and the app store and multitouch. Carry that over to iPad, compared to what tablets were previously.

Come on, the iPad doesn't even have a tabbed browser and they still call it the "best web experience" and I'm not talking about Flash. When you have a full tablet and you still have to quit your program, go find the settings icon, to click on Generla to finaly activate your Bluetooth.... it's just plain ridiculous!

You changed the way people will access mobile information with your first tablet, but don't get stuck with it!

Do you think the iPad's target audience even knows what tabs in a browser are? Or cares? It's entire goal is to simplify computing.

I would venture to say they do. After all, every major desktop browser has tabs (around 11% worldwide are on IE6, but I also doubt those users are getting iPads). How is a tap and another tap a simplified version of browsing compared to tabs?

I'm not saying the iPad browsers window management scheme is better than tabs, I'm just saying most people probably don't use them. I have no definite numbers, but from experience in watching people browse, they have a bunch of windows open and use the Google search bar to type in "facebook".

I realise this isn't addressing your point, but if a browser with tabs is your major objection to the iPad, I would heartily recommend iCab Mobile. It's full of power user features including 'real' tabs and costs $1.99.

http://www.icab.de/mobile.html

In answer to your actual question, I think Apple will address the more specific needs of power users when they feel they can do it without compromising.

Time, Scope, Quality. Pick two.

Apple picks time and quality, and I appreciate it.

What would you have done differently with the iPad 2? Thinner, faster, better seems to be what they do frequently.

Improve the OS so it doesn't feel like a big iPod Touch! Maximize the iOS Core for the tablet environment, not just stretch it!

You're not actually saying anything here. You're waving your hands around, shouting "make it better," without any concrete steps for how that might work.

Meanwhile, not a single company has come to market with a tablet that can match Apple on price, consistency, build quality, operating system, 3rd party developer support or user experience.

I mean, what are you looking for in iPad 2, exactly – a holographic display and unicorn-bone battery, driving a telepathic OS?

I am just hoping that for a 10 inch device it wont tell me "Location Services isn't ON go to Settings to activate it", at least just put the damn button in that disruptive notification window you have.

The hardware is impeccable, but nobody had any problem with the thickness of the first iPad and that's what they changed. They know their average consumer don't know all those things and functions like tabbed browsing, so they take advantage of it by not taking some of their time and budget to develop those functions. They take advantage of their market.

How can a consumer complain about something they don't know; they can. But they still have the right to fully understand what is available elsewhere and what functionality (that is quite crucial) they just decided to omit. Consumers have the right to know all these things.

Defending the product and just saying it is all nice and good means that it will stay that way. Criticizing and getting informed is what everyone should do in order to make good decision and keeping every new technology advanced and innovative not repetitive !

> The hardware is impeccable, but nobody had any problem with the thickness of the first iPad and that's what they changed.

They changed substantially more than that:

- More RAM, so browsing and multi-tasking is better

- Faster processor, so apps launch faster

- Better graphics processor, so developers can make even prettier games or do crazy graphics transforms in realtime like PhotoBooth

- Cameras for video conferencing

- It's lighter, so it's easier to carry around

None of these things is trivial, but it's an incremental hardware upgrade. That's how Apple's cycles work: Major revisions every two years, incremental bumps in between.

Meanwhile, Apple's OS release schedule isn't coupled to its iPad release schedule. iOS 5 will be announced sometime in the next month, if the past is any indication.

Apple does better than anyone else at continually improving its software and making it available to previously-shipped devices. I doubt the iPad is going to be left in the cold.

"They know their average consumer don't know all those things and functions like tabbed browsing, so they take advantage of it by not taking some of their time and budget to develop those functions."

Wow, you just complained that a company focuses on things most of their consumers care about while ignoring things most of their consumers don't care about.

They didn't stretch it, apps have been re-designed to take advantage of the bigger screen. Seriously, what are you hoping an iPad to do? If you want dark, glowing buttons with 10 widgets on screen at once, I'd try an Android tablet.

They can do that at any time, software updates don't need to coincide with hardware refreshes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com