Discuss them here.

My thoughts:

It's great. Finally, an actual consumer device. The beauty of the iPhone is that you could pick it up and use it without any sort of training - you touch, pinch, swipe, that's all. The file hierarchy is hidden because it's not necessary: all your photos can be found in the Photos app, music in the iPod, documents in iWork. Users won't have to sift through their folders to find something, it's just there, and always available in spotlight. You can actually turn the device off using the power button without worrying if something might go wrong. It's perfect for someone who isn't good with computers.

But it's not just that, it's Apple's representation of what the next paradigm shift is. As I've read so many times - it's like the switch from floppy disks and mainstream consumption of automatic cars: each shift loses functionality or control, but it's always outweighed by the benefits.

To be honest, Flash sucks. It's slow and buggy, and it's something Apple can't fix themselves, they need to wait for Adobe. On the other hand, HTML 5 is just around the corner, and Safari (including Mobile Safari) fully supports it.

The lack of multitasking is not that bad - it will only slow down and increase crashes, frustrating the user. But what if you want to IM at the same time as surf the web? You can do that. Push Notifications ensure this works seamlessly. Plus, switching between applications is snappy, so users shouldn't really mind. There are some things however, where multitasking would be more beneficial than detrimental, like streaming internet radio -and I'm interested in seeing Apple's solution for this, hopefully in iPhone OS 4.0.

I could talk about this more, and will be happy to if someone brings a point up. However, the iPad is actually a great device. For the long way we've come in the past 50 years or so, people are still stupidly reluctant to change, and it's these people who voice their opinions the loudest.
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Lazurane

One or two things you mentioned made me wince because they weren't entirely right, so allow me to point them out first...

Flash isn't as bad as you make it out to be. It's good in comparison to other so called solutions we could have got under the pseudonym "browser multimedia platforms" (Silverlight, Java applets and derivatives). The reason why Apple doesn't allow it is not because it's slow and buggy: that's a problematically leaky rationalisation that people with Apple products use. Flash isn't on the devices because it's not their product, and would allow people to make apps for the iPhone that could be distributed ad-hoc, not necessarily through the App Store, as is the case on numerous contemporary mobile devices (e.g. Sony Ericsson phones).

Next, HTML 5 is a working draft, and not a recommendation. It's not really possible for any browser to fully support it, and neither WebKit nor the other engines fully support it currently. Also, it's not exactly around the contextual corner. I'm betting Apple will come out with a new product by the time it becomes widely used.

Back to the topic. The iPad hasn't impressed me as much as Apple's other recent stuff, namely the iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm sure it'll sell well, and people will like it. However, I don't think it's brought the kind of innovation that would make me praise it. It's just got a larger screen and some of the small, typical Apple touches. Combine it with some good marketing and you've got a profitable product: not a technological wonder.

Nick said
For the long way we've come in the past 50 years or so, people are still stupidly reluctant to change, and it's these people who voice their opinions the loudest.

Hahaha!
Haha!
Ha. Yeah, people are still reluctant to change because they know the right time to change. And the iPad isn't that time. It's a step forward towards touchscreen computers but as a mainstream device, I don't see it happening.

Plus, I completely hate the fact that it's still dependent on another computer for iTunes. And why iPhone OS? Snow Leopard has touchscreen capabilites, so why not use that? I don't know, probably for some stupid reason Apple has yet to share with us.

Nick said
It's perfect for someone who isn't good with computers.

And horrible when someone who actually gets a computer and doesn't know how to do crap on it.

And I prefer my iPod touch, a device that actually fits in my pocket,
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Linux | Chrome | Python | Chuck

Electron said

Flash isn't as bad as you make it out to be. It's good in comparison to other so called solutions we could have got under the pseudonym "browser multimedia platforms" (Silverlight, Java applets and derivatives). The reason why Apple doesn't allow it is not because it's slow and buggy:

Flash is the number one cause of application crashes on Mac OS X. It's proprietary, so Apple can't fix it and therefore have not included it.

Pikachu said

Ha. Yeah, people are still reluctant to change because they know the right time to change. And the iPad isn't that time. It's a step forward towards touchscreen computers but as a mainstream device, I don't see it happening.

People are always reluctant to change. It's not because they know when to, they just are.

Pikachu said

Plus, I completely hate the fact that it's still dependent on another computer for iTunes. And why iPhone OS? Snow Leopard has touchscreen capabilites, so why not use that? I don't know, probably for some stupid reason Apple has yet to share with us.

iPhone OS is super simple to use, that's why it's on the iPad. Most people can pick up an iPhone or iPod touch and use it, they touch things to interact with them and that's it. Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, whatever aren't very user friendly. iPhone OS is the perfect OS for a consumer-aimed device.
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Lazurane

iPad blows.

Those are my thoughts

Never mind, in the meantime I have changed my mind. Fuck Flash player.

WOOHOOOOOOO
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Lazurane