tenuous iPad link

[StevieB]

Oh how everyone loves to jump on the latest hype over the iPad - FWW are asking if you will use it to search for woodworking related content?! Given that it will not play flash video's, the most interesting part of the FWW site will not be available anyway :roll:

Anyone thinking of being an early adopter of the large iPhone iPad ?

Steve

 

[chingerspy]

One of the mac users here at work told me today that it will be retailing at £499. This is too much if you ask me, something more like £300 and I may have been interested.

I would just get the wireless one anyway which may be cheaper? I have the iphone for 3G emergency access while out and about. In any case I doubt I will be jumping on it straight away.

 

[wobblycogs]

I'm not completely conviced that it fills any particular niche in the market well enough to really take off. I'm sure initial sales will be very good because there is a certain part of the population that has to own everything Apple make but after that you have to convice people they need an outsized iPhone.

My biggest reason for buying one would be to read eBooks but from what I've read it's going to be fairly crippled in this respect (even more cripped than current eBook readers which is pretty good going). As for accessing the internet I can already do that on my computer and phone and I pretty much never use it on my phone.

 

[RogerS]

.....I have the iphone for 3G emergency access while out and about. ....

I hope you won't need to use 3G round our way as coverage is non-existent - even in Hereford City Centre it's very patchy.

Re the ipad..much as I love Apple stuff I can't see the point of it. If I had better 3G coverage then I'd be tempted by the iphone. If you want to read, use a book!

 

[Kalimna]

Apart from looking pretty, the iPad has a major flaw in its' lack of multitasking. It's irritating enough on the iPhone, but on a 'proper' computer it's unforgivable in the modern age.....

You can count my £499 out......

Adam

 

[woodbloke]

You can count my £499 out......

Adam

You could spend that on another half decent knife! :lol: - Rob

 

[Kalimna]

Rob - Don't you mean spend it on half of a decent knife?

Adam

 

[wobblycogs]

Not wanting to hijack the thread but...

Roger, I suspect you've never really taken an eBook reader for a test drive I suggest you give it a go as you might quite like it. They aren't going to kill paper books anytime soon but for a certain set of people they are fantasic devices.

For example, I happen to have good eye sight but being able to increase the font size makes reading much more pleasurable. For my parents with poorer eyesight who also read books on it it's a god send.

I admit I have a fondness for paper books and I love having shelves full of them but what makes a book is story in it not the material it's made from.

 

[wizer]

Don't get me started on yet another technology that Apple are entering to the market with about 2 years too late but that everyone is hailing as the next best thing :x :evil: :roll:

 

[Smudger]

No-one could see the point of the iPod, no-one would buy it because of DRM etc. Total sales - over 150,000,000.
Apple brought the iPhone to market 2 years too late etc etc etc = total sales since late 2007 - over 18,000,000, and apparently reaching a tipping point in sales.

Clearly Apple has no idea of product design or marketing...

The iPod and iPhone redefined their markets. The word from Apple (and I mean inside) is that they expect the same thing to happen with the iPad. Product will be developed to exploit the iPad, not the other way around. It won't compete directly with the book Kindle, but with a glossy magazine/website version of, and still do the book thing pretty well. It is for reading, surfing, a bit of gaming and whatever developers can make for it to do well.

Why do people have to slag off the successful and popular, just to prove that they are somehow above the common herd?

 

[RogerS]

Not wanting to hijack the thread but...

Roger, I suspect you've never really taken an eBook reader for a test drive I suggest you give it a go as you might quite like it. They aren't going to kill paper books anytime soon but for a certain set of people they are fantasic devices.

For example, I happen to have good eye sight but being able to increase the font size makes reading much more pleasurable. For my parents with poorer eyesight who also read books on it it's a god send.

I admit I have a fondness for paper books and I love having shelves full of them but what makes a book is story in it not the material it's made from.

Tried one. Couldn't stand it. Nothing beats holding a good book in your hands.

 

[wobblycogs]

Fair enough, each to their own.

I'm interested to know what you didn't like about it though. There are only a few things I would change to make mine the perfect real book replacement: bigger screen, slightly better contrast*, better selection of books (which will come I suppose) and finally better handling of PDF.

* I find a black on grey of the eBook easier to read than black on pure white as you get with a lot of printed material. A hint whiter would be nice though.

 

[Smudger]

Cogsy - 2 questions:
How many books can you store at any one time?
Can you read it in bed?
Can you get much non-fiction (history etc) texts for it?

That's 3. Never mind...

I ask as a serial insomniac, who is often laying in bed at night checking emails on his iPhone...

 

[miles_hot]

have to say that aside from the ability to increase font size I really can't see the point of ebooks (kimble and ipad etc). The iPod et al make a lot of sense - you can take your whole library out with you and listen to different things as the mood takes you. The same is not (I feel) the same of books - certainly I tend to read a book through, or maybe have at most two on the go at once. They also tend to be at least the same size as a book so the nono pod type "god that small and cool" can't apply.

I am as much of a gadget lover as the next chap but I couldn't bring myself to buy a kimble and I feel the same way about the iPad (much as it's cool apple chic stuff - it just feels like a cool gadget looking for a purpose and one of the key Initial selling points of being a kimble killer is lost on me).

Now bring out folding / unrolling screens showing text moving images, newspapers with film - I'm there

Miles

 

[wizer]

I've been reading eBooks on either my old XDA phone or PDA for the past 7-8yrs. Much more preferable for those of us who have to commute, especially if it's part of your phone. I don't see the need for such a large screen if it's just being used for reading books. I think the XDA's screen was 6" x 3", fine for novels. Pants for PDA's I admit. The main reason I'd have a tablet PC (not anything from Apple), would be for internet browsing and video whilst commuting\traveling. If I was just reading a book, I'd take the PDA (which can also do video very well actually).

 

[andycktm]

I like the look of it,but hows the battery going to hold up with a big screen?

 

[wobblycogs]

To give you an idea of sizes a standard fiction book in epub format will weigh in under half a meg. The reader I have (Sony PRS 505) came with 128MB built in so, give or take, 200 books. Other formats, such as PDF, tend to me much larger. There is also a memory expansion slot (which I've never felt the need to use) which I believe takes upto a 1GB card.

One of the main reasons I love my eBook reader is because it's so easy to read in bed. It sounds silly but one of the things I hate about paper backs is hold them open which, of course, is a non-issue with an eBook. Something you might not have realized is that you will need a light on to read it in bed because the display is passive (like paper) rather than active (like a monitor). This is a good thing though as it makes it much less tiring to read for a long time.

As I said before the selection of books is currently fairly poor and non-fiction especially so. There might be a few history books available but certainly not many. I'd check to see if there are any available in PDF format which most readers will handle but the pagination isn't quite a good as with a proper eBook format like ePub

There are quite a lot of books available for free. A lot of the classics which are out of copyright can be picked up from places like project Guttenberg (often as plain text) and some Universities have put together eBook formated works - I particularly enjoyed the Count of Montecristo. The Sony readers come with a collection of 100 classics which I'm still working my way though.

You can also buy a fair selection of recent books from Waterstones and a few other places although you'll choke when you see the price (eBooks aren't VAT exempt). Most bought eBooks come with DRM built in, which I hate, but it's possible to "correct" this problem.

One thing people always ask next is how often do you charge it. The answer is so infrequently I loose the USB lead. Mine will do 1000 pages on a single charge and probably rather more so I charge it about once a month.

 

[petermillard]

My biggest reason for buying one would be to read eBooks but from what I've read it's going to be fairly crippled in this respect (even more cripped than current eBook readers which is pretty good going). As for accessing the internet I can already do that on my computer and phone and I pretty much never use it on my phone.

Actually, if (a big if, admittedly) all the reading apps currently available for the iPhone/iPT are ported across to the iPad, it'll be the most compatible ebook reader available. Yes, Apples own iBookstore provides its own flavour of the ePub format, but who cares when you can buy and read your Kindle books in the Kindle App? Apples iBookstore is only available in the US at launch, apparently - they're still working on all the licensing involved with the various publishers I guess. And let's not forget it took Amazon two years to produce an 'International' version of the Kindle...

Re. the iPad, price in the US is $499 USD; no UK prices have been set yet, but the general feeling is that it'll start at around £399 (US price converted to UKP, then +VAT and a bit more on top just 'cos they can...)

I'm in, anyway; base model at launch, evaluate it for the rest of the year, and buy the one I really want (iPad 2.0) when it comes out, maybe by Christmas??

Cheers, Pete.

 

[CNC Paul]

I like the look of it,but hows the battery going to hold up with a big screen?

Andy,

10 hours

 

[Smudger]

I've heard some rumours about iPad 1.1/2.0.
Apparently the case has a hole in it, just right for a camera, probably for video iChat/Bonjour.

The spec may be quite different by the time of the launch.

Adobe are under pressure to produce a compatible version of Flash (this is an Adobe problem, not an Apple one).

Apple expect it to create a new market, similar to the iPod, not exploit existing markets. They don't see it as a competitor to the MacBook or the iPhone.

The operating system may well be iPhone 4.0.

The screen ratio is poor for movies, but excellent for books and magazines/newspapers.

Bear in mind the advertising strapline: "Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price". That's what people will be buying into.