Good god the iPad is a steaming pile of disappointment

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Nah, that's nothing. A Kindle lasts far longer than that.

Of course, this device does more, but if we're talking about using as a book substitute, it's not superior to what exists out there.

Kindle can't do graphs and images well, so it cuts out the very profitable textbook market. Kindle is dead in the water.

No File Management or Freedom to download files (even documents) from online
No Ability to run custom Apps not preapproved by Apple and sold via the App Store

Marginal Cost Pricing: iPad Edition

If you liked marginal cost pricing for mass transit, then as Tim Lee observes you’re going to hate Apple’s new iPad which represents the furthest elaboration of Apple’s turn to a business model where they’re not only trying to sell you a device (iPod, iPhone, etc.), they’re trying to become a monopoly retailer of digital content:

Quote:

This is of a piece with the rest of Apple’s media strategy. Apple seems determined to replicate the 20th century business model of paying for copies of content in an age where those copies have a marginal cost of zero. Analysts often point to the strategy as a success, but I think this is a misreading of the last decade. The parts of the iTunes store that have had the most success"music and apps"are tied to devices that are strong products in their own right. Recall that the iPod was introduced 18 months before the iTunes Store, and that the iPhone had no app store for its first year. In contrast, the Apple TV, which is basically limited to only playing content purchased from the iTunes Store, has been a conspicuous failure. People don’t buy iPods and iPhones in order to use the iTunes store. They buy from the iTunes store because it’s an easy way to get stuff onto their iPods and iPhones.

Apple is fighting against powerful and fundamental economic forces. In the short term, Apple’s technological and industrial design prowess can help to prop up dying business models. But before too long, the force of economic gravity will push the price of content down to its marginal cost of zero. And when it does, the walls of Apple’s garden will feel a lot more confining. If “tablets” are the future, which is far from clear, I’d rather wait for a device that gives me full freedom to run the applications and display the content of my choice.

Right. I find the whole thing a little bit weird. I love Apple’s design sensibility and have spent a ton of money on Apple products over the years. But when I looked into what the Apple TV actually does, I wanted nothing to do with it. There are lots of different kinds of digital video content. A device that stored all kinds of digital video content and displayed it on my television, that had aesthetically pleasing industrial design and an aesthetically pleasing interface is something I’d be tempted to buy.

Obviously over the years I have, in fact, used the iTunes store to buy music and put it on an iPod or an iPhone. But I’ve also loaded audio from plenty of other sources"BitTorrent, Emusic, CD rips, Yale Open Courses, etc."onto them. That’s the genius of it. The rise of a world in which the marginal cost of distributing content is zero, and therefore content becomes extremely cheap, is very bad for incumbent producers/distributors of content. But it’s a windfall for the people who make the devices that store/play/use the content. To me it looks like Apple has rode that wave by being good at building devices. The whole “store” kick just seems like a misunderstanding of what’s appealing about these products. The iPad is cool-looking and seems to have a considerable amount of computing power"why not just let people come up with whatever they want to put on it?

I mean, I hear people touting this as a 'laptop replacement,' but that's just bullshit.

Who is going to read books on this thing if the only books you can read are ones which you have bought from Apple?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I mean, I hear people touting this as a 'laptop replacement,' but that's just bullshit.

I'm one and no it really isn't. I mainly just work within a browser if I'm on a laptop, and for me that would be a great laptop replacement that I'd find myself using more. Right now my laptops mainly gather dust.

It may not be for you, but instead of buying a netbook or another laptop I'd buy this instead. And I think they are going to make a big splash, you criticize them for not innovating enough but not all is innovation and features and their entry into the e-book market is as significant as any feature twiddling they could do.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Who is going to read books on this thing if the only books you can read are ones which you have bought from Apple?

You already said you read books on the touch and this can run the same apps. You can do kindle on this if you want to just as I do on the iPhone.

Their draconian nature is a big downside, yes, but do note that you already do what you claim you can't on this platform. This is just a bigger size to do it on (which would make me read more, I only read a bit of the kindle app because of the size).

everyone

"SAN FRANCISCO, California, USA -- Wednesday, January 27, 2010 -- As Steve Jobs and Apple prepared to announce their new tablet device, activists opposed to Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) from the group Defective by Design were on hand to draw the media's attention to the increasing restrictions that Apple is placing on general purpose computers. The group set up "Apple Restriction Zones" along the approaches to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, informing journalists of the rights they would have to give up to Apple before proceeding inside.

DRM is used by Apple to restrict users' freedom in a variety of ways, including blocking installation of software that comes from anywhere except the official Application Store, and regulating every use of movies downloaded from iTunes. Apple furthermore claims that circumventing these restrictions is a criminal offense, even for purposes that are permitted by copyright law.

Organizing the protest, Free Software Foundation (FSF) operations manager John Sullivan said, "Our Defective by Design campaign has a successful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. We organized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Apple stores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music. We're here today to send the same message about the other restrictions Apple is imposing on software, ebooks, and movies. If Jobs and Apple are actually committed to creativity, freedom, and individuality, they should prove it by eliminating the restrictions that make creativity and freedom illegal."

The group is asking citizens to sign a petition calling on Steve Jobs to remove DRM from Apple devices. The petition can be found at: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad

"Attention needs to be paid to the computing infrastructure our society is becoming dependent upon. This past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protesters can have the technology they use turned against them by the corporations who supply the products and services they rely on. Your computer should be yours to control. By imposing such restrictions on users, Steve Jobs is building a legacy that endangers our freedom for his profits," said FSF executive director Peter Brown.

Other critics of DRM have asserted that Apple is not responsible, and it is the publishers insisting on the restrictions. However, on the iPhone and its new tablet, Apple does not provide publishers any way to opt out of the restrictions -- even free software and free culture authors who want to give legal permission for users to share their works.

"This is a huge step backward in the history of computing," said FSF's Holmes Wilson, "If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad."