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

[Jonathan Patschke]

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
your pocket and won't function as a phone, or if it's trying to be a small
Mac that doesn't have a keyboard and won't run Mac applications.

If it ran Mac OS with some sort of Front-row-like interface to all the
media and web stuff, that would be useful.  Imagine sitting on a flight
with a tablet you could affix the seat in front of you at eye-level, with
a bluetooth or USB keyboard sitting on your lap.  Even if the performance
is crap, you can get Real Work[0] done without the discomfort of using a
laptop in coach.

> 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?  ARM Cortex isn't a toy; it's a very swift CPU.
This device[1] seems to echo back to the first PowerPC Macs: Insanely
great hardware, pity about the system software.


[0] Yeah, there's the keyboard-dock thing, but I still can't run MS
     Office, XCode, or Mathematica on the silly thing.  It's probably a
     even pain just to get Vim on there.
[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."
[2] NMF
-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Science is what we understand well enough to explain
Elgin, TX         (   to a computer.  Art is everything else we do."
USA                )                                    --Dr. Donald Knuth