Hitler responds to the iPad
– and he’s not impressed.
Personally, I’m waiting until the MS launches the “Courier” before I make another tablet purchase.
– and he’s not impressed.
Personally, I’m waiting until the MS launches the “Courier” before I make another tablet purchase.
Designed by Gabfire slightly modified by stageleft
More or less agreed. No one I’ve spoken to can figure out the point of the iPad much beyond being an big iPhone mixed with a Kindle. They are coming out i iWork software for it, which might make it useful for working while travelling, but…word processing and spreadsheets on a small touch screen?
Hmm, could they have scaled down a Macbook Air plonked a touch screen on top?
I can wait. I’m not going to carry more than one device around. I resisted a cellphone for the longest time until the IPhone came out and I could stop carrying my laptop around, all the time, ‘just in case’. The electronic reader-type devices that have come out so far just add to the count.
I have a Blackberry and an ASUS R2H tablet so there is no real impetus to even think about getting an iPad (besides, as Hitler said, it doesn’t even have a manly name) – I will however consider the MS Courier when it comes out because it looks like it might be useful.
You can plug it into a full-size keyboard, or use a bluetooth-enabled one, which makes it a lot more attractive for that purpose. In truth, it will probably be in the accessories where this iPad really starts taking off as being actually useful. Even as is, however, I can see some real potential, particularly given the rumour that they’ll be making college textbooks available on them so students won’t have to lug around 40 or 50 lbs of thick hardcovers to class every day. And the iPad looks like it will be a lot easier to deal with than a laptop on a plane when the person in front leans their seat back.
Still, even as a bonafide Mac-head, I won’t be rushing out to grab one of these. My biggest beef is the lack of any USB ports for the connection of some of the Macbook Air -type accessories like an external disk drive and ethernet connector. Without those, I still need to lug about my laptop anyway, so why bother with an additional toy?
My suspicion is that as with the iPod and iPhone, it’ll only be the second or third iteration of the design that will see the device move into the “buy” category.
I can’t imagine owning any device that can’t perform simple multitasking – WTF was Apple thinking when they decided that would be a good idea? Even my Blackberry can (and usually does) run multiple apps at the same time so that older technology is still ahead of the iPad in the categories titled “useful” and “productive”.
I can’t imagine a device that can’t have several applications on the go at the same time either, although I don’t multi-task and never have, because such a thing doesn’t in fact exist. Some research has emerged recently to suggest that people who have several disparate tasks on the go at the same time (as opposed to tasks that compliment each other) are less efficient that those who just work on one thing, complete it and then move to another.
@Ti-Guy – I resent your implication that those of us who multitask are unable to focussssss … err, … ooooh, oh my, new shinny thing just appeared in my other open window… (tick, tick, tick, minutes pass) … ahem, what was I saying again?
You were lamenting the fact that you lost your wallet this morning and that I coincidentally, have one exactly like it. Anyway, what a shame. Why do bad things happen to good people?!!
Anyway, it’s not always that simple. The ability to shift focus is dependant on age and brain biology. Some people are biologically better at it and the cognitive speed of the brain diminishes with age. Some tasks don’t require much intense focus before they can be handled with fleeting attention while others require sustained focus.
From what I’ve seen of its impact on memory and tacit/explicit knowledge, however, I don’t credit multi-tasking with all that much. One of the things I’ve noticed quite a bit in the last few years is the phenomenon of people getting away with making outrageous assertions in news interviews because no one remembers anything factual. It also might go a long way to explain why there seems to be so many people these days who are either entirely too credulous or entirely too suspicious. I’m not sure if that’s related necessarily to multi-tasking or information access, but the fact that a lot people don’t know anything until they look it up doesn’t bode well, I think.