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The Apple iPad
Let me preface this by saying I’m not an Apple fan. I own exactly one Apple device — an old iPod Photo — that I rarely use. I tend to skip Apple products altogether mainly because of their DRM and the infamous Apple tax… higher prices for prestige.
However, I was excited when I first heard about their new upcoming event. Many thought Apple would be cutting the iPhone loose from the ailing AT&T network and opening the door for Verizon. Many others speculated the time was right for Apple to release a tablet PC… especially after seeing domains like iSlate.com being bought by shell companies to Apple’s name. And the people who guessed tablet PC were right… but how right were they?
Is it fair to call the iPad a tablet PC? It is certainly a touch screen device, but out of the box it’s a single user, single program machine. Apple boasts that the iPad can get up to 10 hours of battery life, but that should not be difficult to accomplish if only one program can be run at a time.
The iPad should be great for watching video on the go. Does it have an HDMI output? No. Does it have a DVI output? No. It can use an adapter to output VGA/D-SUB so you can connect it to a projector though. You have to use an adapter? What happened to simplicity and ease of use?
Does the iPad screen have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10 so movies will look great? No, the iPad’s screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3… just like owning an old fullscreen TV.
But how much storage does it have? For $499 you can get a 16 GB version and for $699 you can get a version that tops out at 64 GB. Only 64 GB? It’s a portable device, so that’s probably OK. I can hook up an external drive to it when I need more storage. Wrong. The iPad has no USB ports, FireWire ports, or eSATA ports… not even any card readers.
Apple’s video iChat works great to connect people around the globe. At least the iPad will have that. Sorry, the iPad doesn’t have a camera on the front. Or back.
So what’s the up-side to this device? Does it do 3G? It will in fact do 3G, but you’ll have to throw in another $130 for the 3G capability. The capability… not the service. If you want an iPad with a 64 GB SSD with 3G capability, you’re looking at coughing up $829. Indeed a hefty price tag for features that netbooks at half the price can do better.
In all fairness, the iPad could work well as an e-reader, but reading from a bright, glossy screen isn’t likely to be easy on the eyes compared to the competition’s electronic ink.
It seems like the iPad could be good at so many things, but the it makes concessions on every front and does nothing well. Is this all part of Apple’s plan? It’s easier to make a better device when the device can be improved upon easily. Has Apple set it up so the 2nd and 3rd generation iPads will rock our socks? I sure hope so, because the 1st generation iPad is clearly an oversized iPod Touch (or a limited iPhone if you have $130 to burn on data only 3G capability) that suffers from very obvious ailments.
2
I’m not getting a Zune because I use linux (a true pointless rant)
Today I was talking to Trevor and something dawned on me… I’m not buying a new Microsoft Zune because I use linux(Ubuntu). Years ago I bought one of the first generation 30gb Zune’s and it has served me well, until 2 years ago when I fully switched over to Linux. I tried to make it work with linux, I really did! I loaded up a VM with my old XP Pro installation and hooked up my media library to it (via shared folders), and this worked for a little while, but as time progressed something started to happen. The months rolled on an soon I realized that I wasn’t booting into this virtual machine I had built to sync my library…podcasts…vodcasts…all the changing media that I used to listen to was being left behind(well atleast as far as the Zune was concerned). Now I wasn’t any less up to date with the information that was contained in the media that I wasn’t syncing with the Zune, I just wasn’t using the Zune. Now I’m not sure if it was the extra step of firing up another operating system or if it was the hassle of trying to get USB to pass through to the VM, but I discovered something…..
16
Google account of Twitter employee hacked
Ok, so this is a “retweet” of PCWorlds article aboout how the google account of a Twitter employee(s) was hacked a while ago. Since you can access nearly all of your google accounts with a single login this caused quite a chain of events. Not only was some of the individuals gmail accounts compromised but also google docs and The Business Insider has screenshots of some of the information that was compromised. Now in the article they mention that no twitter accounts were compromised due to this breach only some twitter employees personal accounts.
11
Podcast Episode #7 – Search Giants
Hey, we’re behind again! But I think we had a good podcast. We are introducing a new member of the pointless rants team, Ben, who’s also in the IT field.
Topics:
- Serverfault.com
- Google Wave/app engine
- Microsoft Bing.com
- Pointless Rants!
16
OS Critique: Ubuntu
Well, it’s time to finish critiquing the Big Three desktop operating systems. I’ve already critiqued Windows and Mac, and now I have a few comments about Ubuntu and Linux in general.
28
OS Critique: Mac
We visited Best Buy last night to check out Macs and netbooks. MacBooks are sleek, though that can be taken multiple ways. For some it means smooth and pretty. For others it means slippery. As more and more people adopt Macs, it makes sense to take a look at the ups and downs of their OS and interface. A lot of people are enamored with the Cupertino Kid, though a friend of mine remarked that a computer whiz he knows has become “measurably dumber” since becoming a Mac user. Let’s take a look at what the virtues and vices of a Mac.
