The new iPad runs the iPhone OS -- and that's the problem Discussion

[Wolfpup]

The CPU aint wowing me either.

If it is true, and based on the A9 Cortex from ARM, and what Engadget, Electronista and Fudzilla have posted, this is a mere Tegra 2 rename. No "new and innovating" CPU, just a renaming marketing gimmick....geez, where I have heard that before

I'd assume it's Apple's own design. That they've licensed an ARM instruction set but done their own CPU. I wouldn't expect it to be much different in performance than an equivalent ARM design though, whether it's A8 or A9 or whatever.

And I could be wrong...it could just be a rebadged A8 or A9 core or whatever.

it's pretty competent for an ereader. i think that's it.

Nope, Kindle is much better due to the e-ink screen.

Yeah, see that's the thing, and I've had someone talk about it in comparison to the Kindle. Well, the DRM activation will probably be better, but the hardware? It's physically larger and heavier. The screen may well be worse. Battery life is probably worse. No hardware buttons.

I mean I'd love to be given one and try a book on it...but it seems like it's probably inferior, and yet it costs double.

It's worse than a laptop for most anything where you want a real computer. It's worse than an iPod for anything where you need pocketable portability. It's just so limited.

If they had released it with an ARM CPU and real OS X for $500, THAT would have been cool. It could have still run Mobile OS X programs, and could have still had stuff like a special version of iWorks for it, and an alternative (probably default) tablet interface that's toggleable. All that could have been done for the same price.

I mean...we don't know how much RAM it has, but at worst they just would have swapped their dinky ARM CPU for an Atom, and bumped the RAM from whatever it is (it would be a minimum of 256MB, but could possibly have 512-1GB). At worst they would have just bumped the RAM a bit, and...easily could have sold it for the same price.

I mean there are people going "oh, but that would cost more!" And it's like, no, it would not. $500 is super pricing for a 'netbook', and those already have more expensive hardware.

[Wolfpup]

You'd have to jailbreak it somehow PLUS someone would have to maintain a Linux distribution for it, which would be an effort. And even then, most people would much rather be running real OS X or Windows on it than Linux.

[catacylsm]

I'd have definately gotten one of this was running OS X, i would actually use it in every day life.

Jailbreaking will allow this thing to function (Sorry apple, you deserve it this time!)

Potentially this device could have been an everyday thing, i'd work on transport for crying out loud, but they made it a giant kids toy :'(

But i'm happy i went out and bought the N900, does much more then this iPAD.

[tianxia]

I mean...we don't know how much RAM it has, but at worst they just would have swapped their dinky ARM CPU for an Atom, and bumped the RAM from whatever it is (it would be a minimum of 256MB, but could possibly have 512-1GB). At worst they would have just bumped the RAM a bit, and...easily could have sold it for the same price.

it's funny that Jobs says netbooks are too slow, then releases the 'netbook killer' which is even slower.

[Wolfpup]

it's funny that Jobs says netbooks are too slow, then releases the 'netbook killer' which is even slower.

You know, I hadn't thought about it like that! That is hilarious "Those netbooks are too slow and limited! Here, buy this much slower, 100x more limited device instead!"

[Angelic]

You know, I hadn't thought about it like that! That is hilarious "Those netbooks are too slow and limited! Here, buy this much slower, 100x more limited device instead!"

It's more sad and pathetic than funny. Apple fans and people who don't know any better *will* buy it.

[brigadir]

Somebody needs to just hack this and put a Linux package on there. Maybe like Ubuntu. I'd actually buy that.

it is hard to do thanks to ARM. Apple has protected his device from intervention

[synaesthetic]

Basically, what netbooks were originally designed to do before manufacturers decided to sell them as cheap laptops.

If netbook makers didn't do this, the device never would have survived. That is what the market wanted. Netbooks were originally created to fill a niche that didn't really need filling, and instead were shoehorned into another niche that was previously filled by old used laptops--the cheap computer niche.

And in my opinion, that's where netbooks (and CULV notebooks) should be. They're a damn sight more practical than a gigantic twenty-ton budget 15" laptop with a gutless single-core Celeron or Athlon processor. And they have vastly superior battery life.

I don't think the iPad (god, what an unfortunate name) has any niche of its own. It would excel as a portable video player, except for several problems: it has a 4:3 aspect ratio, it can't handle h.264 above the main 3.1 profile, it can't deal with more than 8 reference frames, it has no support for the MKV container format and it does not display rendered soft subtitles.

Anyone wanting to load up their iPad with video would have to spend a protracted period of time transcoding their video to the iPad's liking (suffering a loss of image and sound quality in the process).

[skagen]

my old (3 or almost 4, don't remember exactly) R5 fanless Panasonic laptop (Solo U1.2) is pretty fast under Windows XP. No any problem with office or other daily used application. Skype, browser, music, e-mail is normally run in the same time. Let me underline Windows XP is real multitasking system ! !

I dunno about that. I had the Panasonic W5 version with similar CPU (single core 1.2 ghz and Win XP) and I remember it being:
1) relatively slow, and
2) definitely choked if asked to do more than one thing at a time

The Apple OS is much simpler and "lighter" so should be more friendly towards multitasking than trying to run XP on a single core pentium.

[skagen]

If netbook makers didn't do this, the device never would have survived. That is what the market wanted. Netbooks were originally created to fill a niche that didn't really need filling, and instead were shoehorned into another niche that was previously filled by old used laptops--the cheap computer niche..

Not quite. What netbooks really did was to democratize a very old and established niche: ultraportable computers, such as made by Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Panasonic for many years. These had been mostly limited to Japanese market and were exported grey market for enthusiasts, "road warriors" and geeks who had the MONEY to afford them.

But the NEED for ultrportable computing had always been there. For many types of people eg the university student who carries a bag full of books all day and needs to keep the weight down, the non-geek who uses the computer at home lightly to read weather, news, book tickets etc.

For me the netbook concept was confirmed as the democratization of ultraportables, a long time ago when I saw a taxi driver in Berlin using one with a USB 3G modem. He was reading news and cacthing up on e-mail while waiting for customers at a taxi stand. That no-limits portability and battery life is what we old timers used to spend $2,000 on not that long before. Now anyone with $300 could get 90% of the functionality we had.

The ipad or whatever its called just takes this concept further, honing in on the folks who own PCs and mostly consume media, not produce it. The Apple folks would have seen what I immediately got after just a couple weeks with the Iphone 3GS: nice in a pinch as a walkman on steroids, but in that phone size of device you cant really enjoy consuming media or even typing urls to get that media. On the other hand netbooks were a good first point, but too cheap and nasty in most cases.

So Apple is taking another approach to evolve the netbook - and also their macBook air BTW. One could consider this ipad to be the "macbook airSlate" taken downmarket and engineered down in price/positioning with the use of the iphone OS.

This is the new home PC for the middle class IMO. It will sell well in that capacity. I wouldnt be surprised if Apple builds on this by augmenting further their Apple TV into a combo home server and/or expanding the MobileMe to anchor this unit here.

Its not a product I would necessarily buy, but it makes sense and it will sell - very well.