Icrontic Op/Ed: Steve Jobs is tired of you

bjbroderickbjbroderick Clinton Township, MI
edited February 2010 in Science & Tech

Comments

  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Fair points. Catering to the masses only brings everything down, though.
  • bjbroderickbjbroderick Clinton Township, MI
    edited January 2010
    Indeed, but that can be leveraged to everyones advantage. I will be happy if the less featured products sales help drive the innovation and improvement of the feature laden products.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Fair.
  • edited January 2010
    My dad thinks this is a great product idea to purchase for my mom. I've shown my mom some of the announcement video; She thinks it's a stupid idea and that it looks like a toy.

    I'm not sure I'm convinced that its extreme ease of use is going to catch on in the mainstream, but I think it's an interesting take on computers for Apple to try to provide an extreme ease of use computer. I also think this is just the beginning of a larger product line of this style of personal computing devices, if it catches on.

    eReaders sound like a stupid idea too, but they're all the rage right now. Maybe Apple is onto something here.

    I should point out that I feel this is so far and above easier to use than Android or Moblin tablets will be, and that the ease of use is the defining feature.
  • bjbroderickbjbroderick Clinton Township, MI
    edited January 2010
    Ease of use is key, but don't forget the Apple marketing machine is Massive! My parents in law heard about Macs all day long, but didn't really want one till they saw one on every television show they watch. Eventually, people out of the loop start thinking to themselves "I must be retarded! Am I the only person in the world that doesn't have a laptop with glowing fruit on it?" And thus, another notch in Steve's belt.

    Brian
  • mas0nmas0n howdy Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    I think my main problem with the iPad is that the TC1100 kicked its ass almost 6 years ago but nobody wanted a tablet. Apple does it and it's magical and revolutionary. Maybe I'm just bitter.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    I was reading a piece today by Frasier Speirs titled "Future Shock" that said this:
    I'm often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they're thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.

    With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.
    I think that pretty much sums up what the iPad is about and the tech media's reaction to it. I don't really want one, but I'm not the audience they're after and I don't think that devalues it as a product.

    Great piece, Broderick.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    I agree with the write up and the problem most of 'us' have with the ipad is that it is a completely different user paradigm, and it comes back to what you were saying about apple wanting to create a new use scenario. And they will, apples pr machine is amazing at that.

    To add to what I was saying about different user paradigms: Most of us want discrete, browse-able, configurable file systems. Most of us want to be able to run multiple applications at the same time. Right now I have chrome, outlook, skype, vlc, uTorrent, pandora, and excel running; not to mention what's running in the background. A majority of us need, or at least think we need, a very powerful system.

    But the users apple is going after don't. They want something exceedingly simple. They would rather not worry about organizing their documents and keeping tabs on them, or more to the point, the will gladly let the os do it for them.

    They neither want, nor need the control. Their documents are still accessible to different applications through calls made to the os.

    I won't get one, but am excited by the concept.
  • spin498spin498 mississauga ON New
    edited January 2010
    From a technical standpoint the iPad does nothing particularly new or interesting for me personally.And like a majority of people who might consider themselves technophiles I wrote it off. But as a part time photographer I was intrigued by an idea a pro photog put across on a photo forum about using it as an electronic portfolio. That idea I do like and may, dependent on my liquidity get one, for that one and only reason.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    I keep coming back to this idea of Apple UI not appealing to our community.

    My roommate during my senior year of college was a pre-med student. He's a brilliant guy; he graduated in the top 5 of our class (no minor feat - the college's pre-med program is notoriously difficult). He couldn't do a damn thing on his PC but send emails and type up lab reports. Every year at the end of spring semester, he boxed up his computer and didn't unbox it again until he came back for fall semester. He doesn't want to know about file system hierarchies and what processes are running.

    When I think about who the iPad isn't for, I think of my friends from Icrontic. When I think about who it IS for, I think about everyone else I know.
  • chrisWhitechrisWhite Littleton, CO
    edited January 2010
    Lincoln wrote:
    When I think about who the iPad isn't for, I think of my friends from Icrontic. When I think about who it IS for, I think about everyone else I know.

    Exactly.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Lincoln wrote:
    He couldn't do a damn thing on his PC but send emails and type up lab reports.

    Did he happen to want to do those two things at the same time?
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Probably not.
  • edited February 2010
    I just think the ipad hardware and OS sucks. No multi tasking, no flash support, no USB, no Mic, no external (non-apple-store) software. It is just an oversized ipod, and a very dumbed down version of a computer.

    As for a camera, it sounds reasonable to expect a device with that shape and size to lack a webcam or a camera, you just can't hold it in a position where a webcam/camera would be useful.

    Flash is a must if you're going have a browser in it, about 70% of the video on the web is played by flash, no point in buying a media-playing product that can't play the vast majority of the videos on the net.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Hey Cris. You should register for Icrontic. :D
  • CrisCris Buenos Aires, Arg
    edited February 2010
    Yeah I just did that,

    BTW I've been cheated by this site, it says it takes 30 seconds to register but I did it in 25.3! :D
  • GrimnocGrimnoc Marion, IN
    edited February 2010
    Cris wrote:
    Yeah I just did that,

    BTW I've been cheated by this site, it says it takes 30 seconds to register but I did it in 25.3! :D

    Wait. So isn't it more like you cheated the site?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    ^ That's what I'm saying. You finished in record time! Come claim your 4.7-second prize!
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Icrontic: Register in 30 seconds, forfeit the next 30 years of your life.
  • CrisCris Buenos Aires, Arg
    edited February 2010
    Woah! icrontic goodie bag? What do I get? :D
  • BobbyDigiBobbyDigi ? R U #Hats ! TX Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Lifetime of Friends and and open invite to educated conversations?

    Way better then a 4.7 second call from Snarky

    -Bobby
  • CrisCris Buenos Aires, Arg
    edited February 2010
    Yep that sounds like something worth getting in exchange of the 25.3 seconds that it took me to register, glad to be here :)
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