iPad - page 309

Steve Jobs will never pitch a product more effectively than he did at the announcement of the iPhone. He said he was introducing three products: “A revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a break-through internet device. And they’re all one product: The iPhone.”

I thought back to that legendary pitch when I saw Steve affix one of his weakest lines ever to the iPad, a device I think actually has remarkable potential:

Image via Gizmodo

That’s right, the selling point is that it’s “Our most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” Really? Your selling points are advancement, magic, revolution, and cheapness? The best thing that line has going for is that device and price rhyme. First of all, almost no one buys magic. More importantly, Apple should never make price a central selling point; other companies can make cheaper knock-offs and then Apple has to re-convince people that that higher prices are justified. Once you try to become the price leader, you can’t really try to go premium again.

But the tagline was also a summation of the one problem that kept coming up for me as I watched the iPad announcement: the device simply does not have a killer app. A killer app, is the use that shows why a new technology is worth buying. For example, microwaves didn’t start selling until microwaveable popcorn was introduced and PCs didn’t sell until spreadsheet software was launched. The iPhone’s killer app, quite honestly, was Safari; the iPhone could certainly do a lot more than browse the web, but for many people, seeing the New York Times home page in multitouch made the sale.

The iPad? Well, I’ll say that the most impressive thing I saw today was the New York Times home page all over again. It’s even better than mobile web browsing than the iPhone. So what? That’s not enough to get me to spend $500. But not to worry. I believe the killer app for iPad is on the way, and possibly by launch. It’s called iLife.

“Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”

— For What It’s Worth, Stephen Stills

That sound, the one emanating Wednesday from the stage at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and reverberating throughout the blogosphere and interwebs, the one heard in literally millions of conversations at lunch counters and water coolers and dinner tables across the globe, was the sound of another ding in the universe.

Once all the snickering about feminine hygiene finally dies down, once Apple finally puts the iPad into the retail chain that saw 50,000,000 people walk through the doors in the most recent fiscal quarter, once people — aside from jaded technology journalists and geekazoids — get the iPad in their hands, Apple’s description of it as a “magical and revolutionary” product will begin to come into focus.

Why?

With every new Apple product announcement, the press releases for third party accessories inevitably start rolling in. Here’s one of them, courtesy of bag maker Tom Bihn: a couple of iPad bags!

Neither’s particularly radical. The Cache costs 30 bucks is basically just a laptop sleeve rezised to fit the iPad’s dimensions.

The other is the Ristretto, a vertical messenger bag, which costs $120, and comes in olive, plum, black and cocoa.

Nothing too exciting here: these are just quickly redesigned iPad-specific versions of existing products. But, hey! At least you can get them shipped to you now in as little as one business day… unlike the iPad itself.

Yesterday, I speculated that the reason Apple didn’t put a camera in the iPad was to help you look thin, but as many commenters mentioned, another possibility is that Apple had another supply chain breakdown, like the one that robbed the iPod Touch of its camera in June.

Maybe that’s right. Techcrunch spotted that the iPad SDK has reference in the Contacts app to taking photos with a built-in camera.

There’s a few interpretations here. This could just be a legacy feature, having to do with the fact that the iPad runs on the iPhone OS. It could also have to do with the iPad’s ability to connect to external cameras through an accessory. Or maybe the camera was pulled at the last minute, just like the iPod Touch’s.

My guess is it’s a legacy goof. What do you think?

Although I was underwhelmed with the iPad overall — a natural reaction, I think, given how much my gig reporting on iPad rumors over the last couple months engorged my expectations — one thing I think the iPad did with its combo of a long battery life, great display and iBooks e-reading app was punch a steaming hole right through the chest of Amazon.

But I may have spoken too soon… at least as far as it concerns international iPad customers like myself. iBooks and eBooks aren’t even mentioned on the Australian iPad listing page. Other countries’ iPad pages feature similar omissions.

Now, obviously, this is simply an issue of getting deals inked with international publishers, but still, it’s troubling, and gives Amazon the leg up in at least one regard: after all, at least the Kindle’s e-reading functionality is now global, although it took them a couple years. I only hope we’re not looking at a similar 2 year delay for the iPad to do international e-books.

[via Gizmodo]

In yesterday’s purgative disgorging of iPad news, it was easy to miss some of the details about Apple’s iPad accessories… and what they cost. Here’s a quick run down of four of them.

The first accessory was the iPad Keyboard Dock, priced at $69. Although it also functions as a charging and syncing dock with stereo out, though the addition physical keyboard is what is likely to make this the most popular iPad accessory: it will theoretically allow the iPad to be used like a netbook… but in some ways, it feels like an omission of defeat by Apple: “Yeah, we want you to be able to work on this thing… but we just couldn’t figure out a good software data entry solution. Sorry.”

The iPad Case, costing $39, seems like a similar admission of data entry failure: you’re just not going to get as good a look at the screen when typing on the virtual keyboard if it’s flush with a surface. The soft, rubbery case solves this problem with the addition of a triangular kickstand. This will also likely make watching movies when the iPad is on a surface in front of you a lot more pleasant.

“Hi, can I speak to Steve please?”

Steve speaking.

“Steve, hi. Listen, we’ve just found out that someone else already has a product called iPad.”

Uh-huh.

“Yeah. Fujitsu. Looks like they’ve had it for quite some time. Since about 2002.”

Really.

“Um, yeah. What do want us to do? Call Legal?”

UPDATE: Check each contest website for details and closing dates — newer ones are last.

The contest list has doubled from the original post. If you hear of others, let us know. Scams have also cropped up with iPads as bait, so remember your due diligence.

Before the launch, we wrote about a daring intern who risked his job by staging a contest with the as yet unseen iPad as a prize.

Today,  a bunch of contests giving the iPad out as prizes have already cropped up, many involve no-brain activities like tweeting (sorry, witty chiruppers!) or signing up for Facebook groups. (If you can bug fix, try here or here. )

So if you want to get your hands on one without spending any cash, this may be the ticket.

Mashable

Springwise

MacMall

Failbooking

TeenCastic

Big Prize Giveaways

Appletell

Weekinrewind

Dealsplus

Retailmenot

3Dbookshelf

TheRagTrader

Winanipod

Geeknewscentral

Swagbucks

Squidoo

Catalink

Pricecanada

The tech buzz

Geeksugar

Savings.com

Meritline

Getafreeipad.co.uk

TheWhuffieBank

Zemime

Mouseenvy

EverythingiCafe.com

IrishAisle

Mahalo

Gimme

Artamata

Whytheluckymobile

Gazelle

Smarta

Appqanda

iPad contest

My contest

Socius

Simply free ipad

If you come across other ones, please add them in the comments.

NB: If you win one, Cult of Mac staffers reserve the right to come over and play with it.

Journalists streaming into the iPad event yesterday were greeted by a handful of volunteers from the Free Software Foundation protesting DRM restrictions in the about-to-be released device.

They dubbed the iPad the iBad for two reasons:

* All media in the iTunes store (with the one exception of music) is wrapped in Apple’s DRM. That means films, TV shows, movies and audiobooks (NB: books are in an open format ePub) are locked to Apple’s platform, taking away your right to share.

* All applications must be signed by Apple if they are to run, an unprecedented level of control for a general purpose computer. On top of this, Apple can push updates to the device over its wireless connection, letting them add or remove capabilities at any time.

There were only about six or seven naysayers outside Yerba Buena center yesterday, but they still hope to bring about some long-term change, namely by getting people to sign an online petition.

When Steve Jobs first revealed the iPod on 23 October 2001, no-one had the slightest inkling of what it might become.

Nobody at the time predicted that the music player would morph into a phone, and then into a multi-purpose tablet device.

The iPad is itself a very similar starting point. What we’re looking at here is the very beginning of a new product line, one that we can expect to adapt, metamorphose, and grow just as the iPod did.

Netflix instant streaming on the iPad? Not any time soon.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says, “Until we get our TV ubiquity and our Blu-ray ubiquity and we’re getting close on video game ubiquity, then we would next turn to the small screen. It’s just not a primary movie-watching (option). So it’s something we will get around to but it’s not in the near term.”

Even with iTunes’s thumb in the movie rental pie, Netflix instant streaming on the iPad needs to happen as soon as it drops. If I’m going to pay $15 for Wi-Fi on a plane I need to watch a couple episodes of Due South for it all to be worth it.

(via Yahoo! News)

Watching that MLB.tv demo on the iPad had me thinking: The iPad is going to add some serious interactivity to my live TV as long as they can figure out how to get live tv onto my iPad.

As we’ve seen, sport fans can benefit from the live stats and home/away team announcers, but how far can we take this?

Am I going to be able to vote my favorite American Idol on to the next round while I’m watching?

We’ll have to start seeing networks with their own apps and subscription fees like MLB.tv, but if Rachel Ray shows me a recipe for ribs and the iPad lets me download the recipe while watching- that’s what we in the business like to call a game-changer.

We have seen an electronic instrument renaissance with the introduction of the iPhone. Apps like DopplerPad, RjDj, Beatmaker and the new synth Argon have shown the potential of a multi-touch device in a live performance setting. The only thing keeping professional musicians from diving all over these devices for music performance and production has been their size. The iPad changes everything.

The monome, pictured above, goes for a lot of money on ebay. If you buy one of these babies new it will set you back $500-$600. What’s worse is the device is very limited release so they sell out, you have to go on ebay and the price gets jacked up. The iPad would replace this midi controller instantly.

While everyone got wild and crazy with the Leaf Trombone and Ocarina on the iPhone, the iPad is large enough to be a legitimate synthesizer/virtual instrument. Also Korg has a line of Kaoss effect pads that the tablet could easily replace.

Not only live music but recording and production: ProTools, Reason, Abelton Live. All could have versions of the software for the iPad or use it as a control surface to make the best use of multitouch.

DJ tool too. Create live techno joints. Hip Hop. Flava Flav. Boyeee

iTunes’s acquisition of LaLa.com and the cheap(ish) data plan from AT&T may be signaling a significant change in the way Apple would have us access our media. If so, the iPad is going to fit perfectly into their little plan.

Even if this isn’t the case, apps like those from Simplify Media allow me to access my photos and music from a non sleeping computer as well as stream media to my Xbox 360.

I’m hoping I’m right on this one, but I think the 16GB iPad is going to be enough to cover my must have media and I can access the rest when in range of 3G or Wi-Fi.

On Sunday night, I made a set of predictions for what to expect from Wednesday’s keynote. It was intended to be direct, straightforward and make a clear forecast of what we would actually see. How’d I do? Let’s go to the tape.

The Tablet Will Have a Custom UI, but Closer to iPhone Experience Than Mac

Probably the biggest question on everyone’s mind is what operating system will power Apple’s tablet of the future, with the leading candidates being Mac OS X and iPhone OS. The more I’ve thought about it, neither is perfectly suited to running such a device, which will be more focused on content creation than the iPhone but less so than the Mac. I’m therefore willing to say that the Tablet is a lock to get its own user interface built on top of core OS X technologies. It will be heavily gesturally driven (yes, even more so than the iPhone), and have far more precise sensing than the current iPhone screen. That said, this UI will more closely resemble the iPhone in look and functionality than it will Snow Leopard. Multitasking is still of less overall utility on a purely touch device than it is on one with a keyboard and mouse combo, so expect full-screen applications, no overlapping windows and possibly iPhone apps that run as widgets on a Dashboard.

NAILED IT! I was wrong about the apps as widgets on a Dashboard, but that’s a tiny miss — and I think it would have been better than the actual solution, which is to run iPhone apps as either iPhone resolution or blow them up to double size.
Score 9.5/10

Apple has posted video of Steve Jobs unveiling the iPad. It’s available in QuickTime and MPEG-4 formats — Low, Medium, or High.

The presentation is also available as a podcast through iTunes. Here’s the iTunes link.

The backlash against the iPad was inevitable and predictable. The lack of a hard keyboard was enough to send most geeks into a fit. But the backlash against the iPad is particularly vicious and visceral.

The word “iTampon” is the #2 worldwide trending topic on Twitter right now.

“This thing sucks. Anyone who buys it is a moron,” says one commenter at Engadget.

Some sites, particularly Gizmodo, are going the extra mile in iPad-bashing.

“My god, am I underwhelmed by the iPad,” says Gizmodo’s Adam Frucci. “This is as inessential a product as I’ve ever seen, but beyond that, it has some absolutely backbreaking failures that will make me judge anyone who buys one.”

But similar reactions greeted the iPhone, the iPod and the original iMac (no keypad, closed system, no floppy), and look what happened to them. They’re just the most popular smartphone, MP3 player and single model of a PC ever built.

Thing is, the last people to ask about the iPad are geeks. This isn’t a product built for them. They’re WAY too in the weeds. They can’t get over the lack of camera, multasking or Flash. But ask my wife about the iPad and Flash and she’ll look at you like you’re speaking in tongues.

As we predicted, the iPad is Steve Jobs’ “computer for the rest of us.” It’s a natural successor to the original Mac, which introduced the GUI to PCs – and was derided by geeks as a “toy.” But look around, the GUI kinda caught on.

The iPad is not for geeks. It’s for ordinary people who want a lightweight computer and are sick of computer headaches. This is a machine you’d buy for your grandmother and not have to worry about tech-support.

Yeah, you relinquish some control — which is something PC fans have always hated about Macs — but most ordinary people are grateful not to think about file systems, software installers and virus definitions.

The iPad is the first computer for people who are completely computer illiterate — and there’s millions of them.

Earlier on we gave you a post crammed full of iPad hardware pics. But now, some software:

See that iTunes UI? A little bit different. What’s that slider at the top left? Thicker, chunkier controls. I might write a whole post about that.

Here’s the App Store. Looks very familiar.

Someone at Apple really seems really thrilled with the whole modular-approach thing; just like they’ve done with iWork, Apple is selling the iPad in pieces. Take what you want, leave the rest.

The nifty keyboard dock above is a good example of this concept. Heavy typists — like us journos — can plop down the extra money, while the game-playing, movie-watching user can save a little dough. Of course, there’s no SD card slot, USB port or video-out either, all baubles Apple is happily hawking: the USB/SD adapters come together in what Apple is calling a “camera kit,” and a VGA-to-dock connector is required for video-out.

There’s also a really pretty, portfolio-looking iPad case that doubles as a stand. No word on pricing for any of these goodies yet.

Right now, only the people who were at the event have actually touched the iPad. So what are they saying about it?

Comedian and author Stephen Fry said on Twitter:

Ryan Block from GDGT told TWiT: “It’s heavy.” He picked it up and felt it was bulky in comparison to other tablet-like devices. He still liked it, though.

Elsewhere on TWiT, another contributor (sorry, I wasn’t fast enough to pick out who it was, it might have been Andy Ihnatko), said it was fast. It kept up with his finger movements without any fuss at all. The page-turning felt like actual page-turning. That’ll be the A4 chip doing its thing, then.

Seen any other comments by people who have Actually Touched the iPad? Shout in the comments.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGiUoXB6IV4&feature=player_embedded

Jonny Ive is on top form in this iPad introductory video from Apple.

“It’s true,” he starts the video by saying. “When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. And that’s exactly what the iPad is.”

BTW: There’s a higher res version on Apple’s homepage, but it’s taking a while to load.

A lot of people following the Steve Jobs iPad keynote this morning weren’t convinced about the device until he mentioned the price: $499.

All of sudden, people wanted to buy three of them.

The price is the big news here. Everyone was expecting it to cost $700 to $1,000 — Apple makes pricey products, right?

But there’s no “Apple tax” on the iPad. This thing is priced to move, and they’re going to sell boatloads of them. And not just to Apple fans — the iPad will attract scores of Windows switchers.

Go to any Apple store and you’ll see heaving throngs of shoppers checking out Apple’s goods. A lot of them are Windows users shopping for a new home machine to replace an aging Windows box. They’re sick of the headaches and want an alternative.

The iPad is that alternative. It’s not an extra gadget, a luxury for someone who already has an iPhone and a laptop. It’s a replacement for that laptop — a true alternative.

And at $499, it’s also an alternative to the Kindle, cheapo netbooks and even Apple’s own MacBooks.

The iPad+ keyboard dock = cheap MacBook. It’s half the price of Apple’s cheapest MacBook, and a third of the MacBook Air.

Steve Jobs is a ballsy guy. He’s probably the ballsiest CEO in the U.S. right now. Who else would undercut their own laptop line — which are Apple’s most popular and most profitable computers — with a brand new device that costs half the price?

But this is how Jobs rolls. He killed the popular iPod Mini and replaced it with the iPod Nano. He’s undercutting the entire iPod line with the iPod Touch. He’s a forward-looking guy, and the iPad is a forward-looking computer.

OK folks, now for some picture pornography. This post is hardware; later on, we’ll do a gallery of software-related stuff. Keep the comments coming. Don’t be shy now: will you buy? Will you buy two? Does this compete with netbooks?

Although John Gruber over at Daring Fireball predicted it a couple weeks ago, I think most of us were shocked when it turned out that Apple’s newly announced iPad tablet didn’t have a forward mounted camera.

After all, why not? With an entry-level price and a $29.95 unlimited 3G coverage plan, the iPad seems like it would afford a perfect solution for mobile video calling. Hell, even if it didn’t have those things, surely it would be just as good as, say, a MacBook in letting people play around in Photo Booth. Right?

No. I think Apple knew what they were doing here. Unless it’s mounted in the iPad keyboard dock accessory, the iPad is going to be predominantly used in a below eye-level position. What that means is that a forward fronted web cam would need to point upwards at a slant to capture a human face.

So what, our lithe and muscular long-necked readers ask? Two words: double chin. Or three words, if you prefer: double triple chins.

One of the most crucial announcements of today’s iPad introduction was the launch of iBooks, Apple’s e-reading application, which has a bundled iBookstore that allows users to purchase e-books on the go. By all accounts, the experience is compelling and fun.

But there’s a big question here around content access. Though Steve Jobs listed off about 8 book publishing partners for the platform, he didn’t mention access to a specific book store partner like Borders, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. And that’s pretty troubling. Even though Apple’s going with the open-source ePub format, which means books from Barnes & Noble should work, there’s no direct mechanism yet for connecting the two, and the import experience remains to be seen.

And I’m not confident in Apple’s ability to populate an amazing bookstore on their own. The movie selection of iTunes leaves a lot to be desired, and I fear the same for books without a partner on-board who really knows the field. Janky as the Amazon Kindle is, its library selection is unmatched.

iBookstore: Slamdunk or Slamflop? You decide!