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Just a Big iTouch – Questions Mere Days Til iPad D-Day

jbb — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:48:49 +0000

“Let me know how you like the ipad. It looks like a jumbo iphone to me ,” I’ve gotten this question more than a few times in the past few months. And most of us have seen variations of the following Doritos ad, punking the idea that the iPad is just a big iPod/iTouch. Funny AND stupid.

So on April 1st many of the A-List reviewers released their reviews of the iPad. WSJ’s Walt Mosberg mused, Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close. NY Times columnist David Pogue doubled downed his review for the geeks and the non-geeks. One of the best video reviews I’ve seen was by Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Andy Ihnatko (see below).

My take? I’m tired of the jumbo iPod/iTouch jokes. I’m tired of the netbook comparisons. This is what I know, everyone complained about netbooks after they came out because they had very slow processors. My own experience with the OLPC was that it was unusable because it was too difficult to do anything more than view one non-flash webpage at a time. And we all remember how many people loved the tiny little unusable keyboards. Yes, the netbooks are cheap, but if it’s unusable than cheap don’t matter. Yes, things have improved, so if that’s what you want, go get one and stop hating on those who aren’t interested in your crippled Windows 7 wannbe. From what I’ve seen, Apple recognizes that slow won’t go and they’ve made sure that the interface is snappy and extremely responsive to user interaction (translation: they put a fast processor in there to get the job done).

Here’s the second thing that I’ve noticed: it’s not about the hardware. As much as the hardware is going to rock, if that’s all you’re focus on, than you are completely missing the boat. Have we not learned the lesson of the Palm Pre? That device was the brain-child of more than a few former Apple-geniuses who put into the Pre all of the elements the Jobs nixed in the iPhone like multi-tasking, slide-out keyboard, etc. So where’s the CES darling of 2009? MIA and quickly heading to DOA, I believe.

Anyway, what the designers of the Pre failed to recognize (and all of the iPhone- and iPad-cloners) is that it’s not enough to do the same thing only a little better. The game-changing factor of the iPad is going to be it’s utter transparency in bringing to the user whatever media experience the user might want whether it’s books, music, TV shows, games, podcasts, or movies. No configurations, no setting up, not even the mere five inches of space between the user and the screen that a keyboard might occupy. And if you want to jot some notes down, or browse the web, or send an email, it’s just a single Home button push away. This is also where the iPad may be most vulnerable: if they don’t get the books, games, movies or TV shows that people want to watch than it’ll be game over. The iPad isn’t about the device. It’s about what the device will invisibly connect you to.

The clones can have memory slots and completely configurable desktops, and every geejaw under the sun, but if the user has to hunt down where to get ones TV shows or install anything to make the videos run, forget it. There will be dozens of devices running some form of the Android OS, or Windows and most definitely Linux and the propeller-heads will make them work (after hours of cruising through user groups and forums looking for drivers, and tips), but that’s not the market or experience that Apple is going for. Pick it up, swipe the screen to turn it on, pick what you want to watch, listen to or create and go about doing that thing. It’s not a big iPod/iTouch any more than a Harley is just a big bicycle. Yes, the bicycle may be better for you and way cheaper but you’re a moron if all you see is a difference in size.

For me I’m really looking forward to writing these blog posts and grading my students’ work on my iPad. It can’t come soon enough (I ordered the 3g model, so I have several more weeks to wait. Damn).

Sources:

Doritos iPad Parody. http://www.fastcompany.com/1580533/doritos-mega-chip-parody-comes-in-apple-flavor?partner=homepage_newsletter retrieved on 4/1/2010

Neofonie announces WePad 11.6-inch Android slate By Joseph L. Flatley. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/20/neofonie-announces-wepad-11-6-inch-android-slate/ retrieved on 4/1/2010

Youtube video: MacBreak Weekly 188: iPad Revealed! by TWiT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty6Hjs0NpDs retrieved on 4/1/2010.

Interactive IKEA Catalog – Apple iPad?

jbb — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:58:22 +0000

Apple reserved presentation space for the end of January and the rumor mills is cranking up around the Apple netbook-thingy… At CES2010 everyone and their brother is announcing all sorts of tablet/slate/netbook/e-book readers devices, all trying to fight against the buzz of a device that hasn’t been announced yet. Amazing.

RollTop Laptop – Answering Yesterday’s Laptop Design Shortcomings

jbb — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:30:57 +0000

What could we do if we had flexible display materials? As advanced as the tech seems, it still might not fly because the rolled up size still seem too big when one thinks about how small and thin and light-weight the Apple Macbook Air, the Sony Vaio X- and P-series and the various netbooks already are. Flexible display materials are just beginning to show up, but there’s something in this design that’s answering problems from when the smallest usable laptops were the 15-inch/6-pound devices. Rolling up said 15-inch devices is still going to be at least 13-inches long and a rolled up girth of four-inches diameter. That’s awfully big when one considers that a lot of people are happy using an iPhone-sized device to do a lot of their communication/computer tasks.

It really comes down to current limitations in the HCI (Human/Computer Interface) area, specifically finding the best ways to get information into and out of these devices. We are limited by the size of the displays we find useful and the size of the keyboard. All of this would radically change should we find a projection technology that presents the visual feedback via a glasses based heads-up-display (HUD), or maybe projects the image right into the eye(s) of the user. As for keyboard/mouse input, there are already projection devices being developed, but what if a virtual reality overlay technology were included in the HUD display being projected into the glasses/eyes so that one would see a virtual keyboard attached to any user-selected flat surface. Of course, if voice-recognition were really functional than the keyboard would be just a secondary editing device used more for error correction than composition. Thus with some combination of VR/HUD and voice recognition the actual computer hardware might easily be the size of an iPhone (CPU, memory, battery, communications links) that never leaves ones pocket. And if/when the input/output become neural with direct links to the brain’s visual and language centers (the wiring harness discretely hidden in a stylish hat, of course), than the hardware might be the size of a piece of jewelry like the Star Trek Next Generation communicator badges. This may all seem very far fetched, but it’s really no more far fetched than having flexible display materials that can be rolled up into a tube.

Sources:
YouTube: Future Designer laptop – ROLLTOP //Diploma Thesis// posted by orkinful, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H0K1k54t6A retrieved on 11/01/2009.
Thanks to CK for sending me a copy of the video