Cripes.
(My inner UI-guy wonders how the touchpad typing compares to the real thing. People are used to schlock with those tiny pads - but give them a full size keyboard and they'll make the obvious comparison.)
Still - the price point is impressive. The $1000 estimates going around in the press miss the obvious goal of getting more than one device in a single household.
Add to that: month to month pricing from AT&T for data transfer. Anything close to consumer freedom when your dealing with a Telco is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
(H/t endgadget)
3 comments:
Ok, so I gather from glancing at the engaget page that the ibook app isn't complete yet? They're looking at the Kindle to figure out how? My main question about the ibook app would be whether it's eink or not. That's really the great advantage of an ebook reader over, say, a netbook. It's easier on the eyes for extended reading.
Tee hee: From NPR's All Tech Considered blog.
That, and they're dealing with Kobo for their e-book app. Kobo sucks. I have it on my iPod touch, and it loads each chapter as if it were a separate book. I don't need no stinkin' page-turn animations, either. I want *fast* paging, not fake paper.
The Slashdot comments are hilarious. "It's like an iPhone that won't fit in my pocket, and does *less* than a netbook!"
Seriously. The $499 version has half the storage that my iPod touch has.
But I grant that it's pretty and looks sleek. If the virtual keypad gets rave reviews and the app choices ever move it into the 'laptop replacement' category, I'd consider it a couple of gens down the road. As a laptop replacement.
A reflective display is the way to go for long-form reading -- for the type of reading person who might sit with an 800-page text for 4-9 hours at a stretch. E-ink is currently the only choice, but other types are in development -- including color. I *do* read comfortably for long-ish periods on my iPod touch, and find that it bleeds less light than my booklight if I'm reading in total darkness. But I believe that's *because* of the small screen. The text-to-light-space ratio is quite small in that instance. The downside is that I basically have to hold it, and my arm gets tired. It doesn't prop up well. But seriously. It's my portable music player/gaming system, and just a fallback for reading.
I predict: iPad will have too much light-bleed for comfortable reading over periods of hours, no matter what they do to fix the screen's background color. I also predict that it will have the same sleep cycle-disruptive effect that TV and Internet-browsing do.
I believe: That competitors in the marketplace are trying to torpedo reflective screen technology. They are de-emphasizing the fact that we are diurnal human organisms with circadian rhythms that are hard-wired sensitive to light exposure; and trying to say instead that reflective technologies are 'for old people'. And of course, if they keep texting, cooking nine-course meals, reattaching severed limbs, or whatever it is they do behind the wheel instead of *driving* (because they think young people can multitask effectively -- when in fact *no human* can multitask effectively), they will die young, be beautiful (albeit messed-up) corpses, and just won't live to test their theory.
Another rant from the thorn. Poke.
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