Other The iFail- wait sorry, iPad, is officially out

+1. I just hope someone comes up with a decent (read un-apple-ified) version.

 

Why? Whats wrong with an Apple version? You agree it's good, functional and easy to use, but you wouldn't buy it because it's an Apple? Quite pathetic.

 

Part of the advantage of Android is also its weakness. The marketplace is much less regulated compared to iTunes, there are a whole load of apps you would never get on iTunes purely because they don't measure up to Apples morality meter. The down side is there have been a couple of phishing apps and quite a lot of what is on the market place is dross, though i've never used iTunes so i don't actually know what the ratio of Goldross actually is there.

 

I have explained (at length) what I feel is wrong with the apple version, as well as my objections to apple's business ethic and why I do not support them. If you wish to know, check out some of my earlier posts in this very thread.

 

Really? If you choose to not buy a product from a company you do not support, you are pathetic? I don't find it pathetic at all to not buy something based on the fact that you don't want it.

 

Like this business ethic?

 

Why do i not believe those figures though? Something just didn't add up. There probably right though and i'm starting to show my love for Apple.... Oh wait?

Sam

 

All electronics are cheap to make. Rule of thumb: divide the shelf price by 4. The HTC Magic only cost HTC £55 to manufacture, but sold for well over £200. You have to pay for distribution, retail cut, support and most importantly, R&D. I have absolutely no trouble believing those figures.

 

There are quite a few estimates that all reach similar figures. I also trust Tom's Hardware, they're pretty good about filtering out the riff raff and only writing reasonable articles.

The article does say that it hasn't compensated on those so it's not $208 straight to Apple's pockets. Like you said, there's a lot more than just parts. What got me was the last section. Premiums for higher capacity models is nothing new (though still annoying no matter who does it), it's the $130 additonal charge for 3G. If the previous $208 is entirely for support, retailer profit and R&D, does a $16 part really add $114 to those other costs? I'd guess not. Obviously Apple has to profit somewhere, I understand that, but placing their profit on 3G seems kinda unethical. Strikes me as a way of lowering the price people see (non-3G) while still making money on the product people want (3G). But then, that's marketing :/

 

Partly, but not only that. I dislike closed systems, and apple is about as closed as you can get. I dislike the fact that they (appear to) design an excellent product and then take bits off (cripple) it just so they can sell it to you over 3-4 generations. I dislike how litigious and patent-happy they are.

I know they are not the only company that behaves in this way, but that is no excuse.

 

But to praise it, then not buy it. Thing I find funny, is how some people claim how all people who own Apple are fanboys, and then to prove their point won't buy an Apple product, even though they hope another company comes out with something similar so soon because they actually want what is already on offer. I'd understand not buying a Macbook, if it doesn't fit the criteria you want, but it's just plain ridiculous. And how these people pay for Windows products, probably Inte products I assume (Who are proven to trying to stomp out their competition), but because Apple is a more mainstream, and more well known company, feel they have to stay away from it.

 

Technically, you don't have to buy everything you like. I loves me a 5870, and I do have the money to buy one, but I can't justify owning one.

 

iPhone OS 4.0 beta includes APIs for multitasking ... aww does that mean the Apple haters have one-less thing to cry about

 

Your sig

But tbh, I don't see how multitasking is critical when you speed of interaction with the device is so slow. Perhaps I'll get better at it the more I play with it, but for now, I'm just doing things too slowly for the lack of multitasking to really bother me. Not like one can alt+tab around the place and rapid-switch between movie/folders/browser.
It's getting really hard to wait for the discounts to apply, I think I might just buy the damn thing now itself.

 

glad you like the sig

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/04/08/apple-posts-quicktime-of-iphone-os-4-media-event/

Watch the keynote in Quicktime. I'm still watching it. If you want to get straight to the multi-tasking feature, fast forward to 10 minutes in. TBH the early stuff is for pro-Apple people anyways. Just before you hit 14 minutes the real plus of multi tasking becomes clear. Looking good from where I'm sitting ... Reckon I'll make good use of it. On a vanilla 3G I don't think the benefit may be felt necessarily due to lack of speed. 3GS and iPad will fly!!

 

Multitasking doesn't work on the 3G anyway.

ALL the stuff in the keynote is always pro-Apple, but even if taken with large spoons of salt, those are all some impressive numbers. Have to give 'em that.

 

But you never said you want another company to do a similar card to seemingly buy that.

 

I've gotten as far as 30 minutes in to the presentation and they've intro'd folders ... simple and very bloody useful! Overdue though, however from what I've just seen, very functional. So that is 1) multi-tasking, and 2) folders ... 2 hits so far.

 

A problem with really well-designed and built hardware is that you take it for granted. You don't realise what it actually took to make it work that well. The iPhone touch screen is a case in point: comparative tests by independent sites have found it to be far superior to other touch-screen phones. It is more precise and it is better able to guess the difference between a poke and a swipe, for instance. Then there is the scratch-proof sapphire glass --you don't notice the absence of scratches and scuffs but you do notice the price. The battery is again invisible, but one of the most reliable on the market.

I could go on. Most of the expensive quality stuff in a product goes unnoticed because it just works. You only notice it when it is cheap crap, because it fails to function properly. A really good OS goes unnoticed because you don't think about it. You don't have to. It is transparent. You look right past it as you're using the device. You only notice how good (or rather, bad) an OS is when you have to think hard about making it do what you want it to do.

Supermonkey is right: the Apple iPad will become a success because it is transparent and intuitive. People don't have to grok how computers work and they don't have to learn its techy ways; they just pick it up and use it. To geeks this may seem kind of irrelevant and even restrictive, but to ordinary people it is a god sent.

Of course other manufacturers could have done this, and probably have thought about it before. But Apple has actually gone and done it. The difference between a millionaire business entrepreneur and a dreamer in a dreary office job is not who had the Great Idea, but who got up and actually did something with it (cf. Xerox PARC vs. Apple and Microsoft).

Make no mistake: the future of computing is not power, not fancy graphics, not AI, but transparency. Ease of use so intuitive that it becomes second nature and an integrated part of our lives, like casually glancing at your self-winding, self-setting wrist watch to know the time.

 

That's all good and fine, I'm perfectly fine with putting all the $208 to R&D and quality. The iPad is somewhat of an adventurer on a new fronteer, there had to be a good deal of planning put into it and a good deal of development behind the parts for it since it isn't just copy+paste from the competitor's product. But again, what makes the change to 3G cost $130? It's not something terribly new so it can't take much R&D, and the cost of support should be largely covered by the 3G provider with Apple only needing to cover any malfunction of the 3G hardware in the iPad should it malfunction. I think I'm safe in saying that's where Apple's profit lies, in the goodies. Makes me think of those Lexus commercials where you see a luxury sedan with all sorts of features shown, then a [quite attractive] price quoted at the end which includes none of them. Who cares if you barely profit off the normal model, everyone wants the full package. It's normal, safe to say it's expected, but mehhh. I'll use this sneaky marketing as an excuse to say why I don't own a nice car! (ignore the money!)

In many respects they're all the future. Greater power can let you run fancier graphics to give you prettier and more friendly interfaces, greater power gives less size for greater integration, greater power may allow for AI which in turn allows smoother/unnecessary interfaces. It's more like the tip of the pyramid that everything is working for together. I like that setup because it's easy to apply to real devices. A perfect device would be a perfect equilateral triangle. iPad would probably be like a stalagmite, for example. Windows Vista, for an annoying to use example, would be pretty horizontal (with a little vertical bit on the prettiness of layout section for Aero).