[geeks] iPad - a 'Miss' for me I'm afraid

[Mike Meredith]

On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:46:24 -0600 (CST), Jonathan Patschke wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Jan 2010, Mark Benson wrote:
> 
> > So it looks really nice, and it's not a bad price either, but...
> > nope sorry.
> 
> I can't figure out if it's trying to be giant iPhone that won't fit in

An iPhone for those of "a certain age" who need something a little
bigger ? There's a huge rant building up in me about those damm micro
USB ports that's going to explode all over my blog sooner or later (I
can't see which way up the connector is supposed to go).

> Even if the performance is crap, you can get Real Work[0] done
> without the discomfort of using a laptop in coach.

That's the thing ... this isn't something for getting work done. It's
something to read/watch video/do things you do on an iphone that would
be more comfortable with a big screen. It's a couch potato "laptop" :)

Oh you could use it as a laptop at a stretch, but that's not what it's
for.

Although hanging a screen up sounds like a neat idea.

> > Oh and it's a netbook size device with a 1GB ARM CPU and it likely
> > won't multitask[2]... GET REAL!
> 
> Ever seen ARM at 1GHz?  

Nope, but I don't anticipate that being a problem ... my clapped out
old EEE PC 900 doesn't qualify as a speed daemon. And you know ? I
still manage to get work done on it. And not always in text mode with
Emacs :)

It's nippier than the iPhone so should be reasonably ok at what it is
designed for.

> [1] And the name!  AUGH!  Nevermind that there are several dialects of
>      English where short-A and short-O are indistinct. I can't wait
> to see the following ad copy: "Macs, iPads.  Now available at the
> Apple Store."

I don't think they spend enough money on researching the name --- iPad
sounds _so_ much like a sanitary towel product in the UK that people
are already asking "does it come with wings?". We don't scribble on
legal pads, we use notebooks.



-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 "I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work." -- Gallagher