HardOCP News
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In hindsight, it is funny listening to Bill Gates talk about iPad / iPhone like devices and Jobs talking about PCs.
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I imagine Apple had been working on the iPad for more than 2 years.
99% chance they started development of the iPad after the iPhone hit the market, the 1st generation model, and was declared a massive success. Until that release, even Apple could not be certain that a touch-based device would go anywhere; there is no way in hell they'd commit that much in term of resources towards a potentially fatal device.
Remember the Newton? Oh yeah, big seller, big product, big fucking failure.
They weren't going to make that same mistake again twice, not with Jobs at the helm. So the iPhone turned out to be the stepping stone, errr... touchstone (?) that got things really moving. It's patently obvious that an iPad is a big iPhone minus the actual voice call technology, anybody that says otherwise is just stupid - not even ignorant, they're just fucking stupid, period.
As such, and as I've been saying for a very long time, the iPad is not revolutionary; it is simply evolutionary and nothing more.
The iPhone OS isn't anything I'd brag about either except for it being the first competitor to Windows Mobile that's mattered - and that comes from the perspective of Windows Mobile and all it's predecessors being either stylus or resistive-screen controlled.
Note I'm careful not to say "touch" there because Windows Mobile was eventually turning into a touch-based operating system - Apple did not invent multi-touch, nor were they the first device with a "touch screen" meaning actual capacitive touch-screen finger-controlled product on the market. Again, evolutionary - taking what came before and stepping on it to reach higher.
Windows Mobile, for all it's faults from day 1, is still a damned fine OS, it really is. But it's oh so easy to just bash it in favor of "the next big thing."
Apple took a lot from Windows Mobile, but people with blinders on can never see all that went into making the iPhone OS that now powers their evolutionary products.
Damned shame that Windows Mobile never gets the credit it so rightly deserves.
And I think Steve blames that entirely (and perhaps unfairly) on the stylus.Remember the Newton? Oh yeah, big seller, big product, big fucking failure.
FRom what I'd been following Apple had a prototype of the MacbookAir as a slate tablet with the only real change being an onscreen keyboard and the explosion over the iPhone caused them to either split development or just dump everything in the jackass iPad. I was really enthusiastic about a MacSlate but the iPad just just idiotic.
Windows Mobile, for all it's faults from day 1, is still a damned fine OS, it really is. But it's oh so easy to just bash it in favor of "the next big thing."
Apple took a lot from Windows Mobile, but people with blinders on can never see all that went into making the iPhone OS that now powers their evolutionary products.
Damned shame that Windows Mobile never gets the credit it so rightly deserves.
Hahaha, no. The iPad runs on common smartphone guts, hence why it runs the iPhone OS. Its just a Cortex A-8 with an extra large battery. HTC could throw something similar together running Android in a month, tops.
Take an iPhone 3GS, clock the CPU at 1ghz, give it a larger screen and a larger battery and you have an iPad. That isn't 2 years of work, nowhere near it.
They probably spent far more time working on all the launch apps than they did the hardware.
Funny you say that:
From the moment the MacBook Air appeared I've been saying "You know, if you took the lid off (disassemble the entire lid assembly, remove the lid itself and use only the LCD and front bezel), and you pull the entire keyboard assembly off (remove the keyboard and palmrests), and then you flipped the LCD/bezel so it's facing up and place it directly where the keyboard/palmrests were, and made that entire LCD a multi-touch surface... my god..."
Now, the iPad isn't quite nearly that concept but, if you can mentally visualize that disassembly and re-configuration of MacBook Air components... it would be pretty damned close to a 13.3" iPad.
So they weren't far off from my imaginings... what a scary thought.
I think laptops will be the device that disappears, not full on PC's. As tablets get better they can double as a laptop if you use an external keyboard. There is no need to always carry the keyboard everywhere you go. There need to be some advances in technology though. Color e-ink displays and faster x86 low power processors the can run a full OS on a true tablet form factor something like the iPad in size.
There are plenty of people who'll NEVER give up a keyboard on their computers. Rapid text entry will be a very important action on mobile computers for decades to come I believe and many just prefer physical keyboards to virtual ones.
With all his money you would think Mr. Gates would have a better barber.
It's not that I'm a keyboard fanatic it's simply that it is very good for text entry, which while not something they do in the 23rd and 24th Centuries. HUGE Trek fan BTW.
Best line in any Star Trek related show, movie, video, etc was in Star Trek: First Contact (which I really was disappointed with):
Cochrane: "I gotta take a leak..."
LaForge: "Leak? I'm not detecting any leak...?"
Cochrane: "Don't you people from the 24th century ever pee?"
Absolutely priceless comedy.
With all his money you would think Mr. Gates would have a better barber.
The only real acceptable substitute to a physical keyboard IMO would be some awesome handwriting recognition. Win7's is decent...but still iffy.
Maybe with the increases in multicore processing power, we'll see excellent handwriting recognition someday.
Let me know when you can write 80+wpm.
The only real acceptable substitute to a physical keyboard IMO would be some awesome handwriting recognition. Win7's is decent...but still iffy.
Maybe with the increases in multicore processing power, we'll see excellent handwriting recognition someday.
Let me know when you can write 80+wpm.
With all his money you would think Mr. Gates would have a better barber.
Let me know when you can type a differential equation or draw a UML diagram with a keyboard.
Once again the right tool for the right job.
Everyone and their brother knew the tablet was coming even before 2007. The problem was implimentation, not the idea.
Everyone and their brother knew the tablet was coming even before 2007. The problem was implimentation, not the idea.