RSS Feed MenuMy latest column for CNN.com discusses my disappointment with the iPad and my hopes for Apple’s next product.
I won’t be buying the new iPad. I can’t see why I need it: an iPhone that cannot make calls, a laptop on which it is inconvenient to type.
The iPad reminds me of a previous Apple product, the Newton. Introduced in the early 1990s, the Newton was a datebook, phonebook and sketchpad too big to hold in a pocket. Who needed it? But the Newton contained the genesis of the iPhone, a machine I depend upon utterly, despite the maddeningly poor quality of the phone service.
So I ask myself: If the iPad is a concept, what is it a concept of? What would I like Apple to do for me next?
Admitting I’m probably an idiosyncratic computer user, here’s what I want:
I want Apple to do for my library what the iPod did for my record collection: eliminate it.
Click here to read the rest.
Natal // Apr 5, 2010 at 2:06 pm
According to this user review David, the iPad has a way to go. I’m hesitant to buy any version 1.0 of a product.
http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20100405/UNPLUGGED/100409983/ipad-unboxing
Carney // Apr 5, 2010 at 3:07 pm
If Frum is so enamored of the iPhone, why is the FrumForum iPhone app so wretched?
1. It’s molasses-in-winter slow.
2. Registration is confusing. Instead of prompting you for the username, email address, and password one already uses on the FrumForum website and then applying that seamlessly in the same manner as the website, it merely demands your name (not username) and email. No password, no username.
3. Instead of swiftly taking you to a simple list of easy-to-read, text-heavy, iPhone-ized list of all FF blogposts, it insists on first forcing you to choose a limited number of topics of interest from a large list. Crucially, the topics do NOT correspond one-for-one to FrumForum’s own blog tags.
4. At last one gets to see a list of posts, but they do not appear to be in order of posting, and are often missing posts that one would think relevant to the topic. And again, there is no way of simply seeing all the posts.
5. The app gives you push alerts about new “messages” for you, which are not personal messages at all but merely notices of new posts in your selected topic(s). Not that you get directed straight to them anyway; you still have to fight your way past the topic-selection screen.
6. There’s no way to comment on the FF app; you have to go to the full, standard website.
Suggestion: look at the iPhone versions of various BlogSmith websites, such as AutoBlog Green. The main site is at:
http://autoblog.green.com
The iPhone version (which works just fine on desktop computer browsers) is at:
http://i.green.autoblog.com
Notice how sleek, fast, easy-to-read, phone-optimized, and comment-enabled the iPhone version is. You are never kicked out into the regular site and never need to leave the iPhone version.
AND THE AUTOBLOG GREEN VERSION IS FREE. Not only that, you can “tear off” a bookmark and place it on your iPhone desktop, where it acquires an icon and acts just like an app.
Shawn Summers // Apr 5, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Thanks Carney. We’ll look into updating the iPhone app.
aule-browser // Apr 5, 2010 at 4:47 pm
The eBook mobile device has a few challenges: one is the rejection of commercial formats by the free-software movement. The MIT web formatting language CURL (www.curl.com) was spun-off as a company and so got no traction: but it offers a great deal more than PDF. It is more than just text and imaging: we need options to comapre versions/editions/translations and options to interpolate footnotes or side-pane footnotes and to link to eTexts from footnotes and options for our marginalia, notes and annotations. Microsoft OneNote 2007 on a netbook is about the best thing at the moment.
A thinking person’s eBook viewer is NOT a web browser. I ahve some notes on the topic over at aule-browser.com
Other formats include Djvu, Daisy, JBig2, MobiPocket, Plucker
EPub is basically just a ZIP file
The Curl format is a much richer alternative to HTML5 or the Literature Markup Language due to the availability of macros and user-defined formats.
Another long-shot: http://www.rebol.com or http://www.rebol.net with the arrival of Rebol3
The most neglected way to index and explore text: ICON as in arizona.edu/ICON or ObjectIcon at code.google.com (from the folks who brought SNOBOL to the humanities.)
sinz54 // Apr 5, 2010 at 4:49 pm
For anyone who is looking at an iPad,
I suggest that you wait till the HP Slate comes out, probably by this summer.
Unlike the iPad, the HP Slate will run Windows 7, fully supports Adobe Flash and AIR, and will likely have a camera. Because it runs Windows 7 as its operating system, there should be a huge number of third-party apps for it, starting off with a subset of Adobe Photoshop which will come bundled.
With Windows 7 and Flash, the Slate sounds like a real substitute for a laptop PC, which the iPad is not.
There are some videos of it on YouTube, as well as some comparisons with the iPad. Judge for yourselves.
TerryF98 // Apr 5, 2010 at 7:47 pm
I agree with Sinz.
The main fault with the Ipad is that there is no way to load or save data from the device unless you pay via apples storefront.
Not going to do that!! Give it 6 months and there will be half a dozen of these devices on the market. I would consider one running windows 7.
sinz54 // Apr 6, 2010 at 10:27 am
The HP Slate will have a USB port, which the iPad lacks.
For me, a USB port is crucial because of all the connectivity I require to do my work and play. I can plug it right into my PC and move stuff back and forth. Plus with a USB port you can plug in a thumb drive to store pictures and such.
sinz54 // Apr 6, 2010 at 10:34 am
aule-browser: from the folks who brought SNOBOL to the humanities
SNOBOL???
Now there’s a term I haven’t heard in 30 years.
The last time I used that, Gerald Ford was President.
I didn’t know anybody was still using that.