Before i go talking about the new big thing from apple, some of you might not know that I'm a BIG supporter of open source standards, software, technologies and so on. So I added a banner in the sidebar of this blog linking to a very nice Romanian open source community (for all you Romanians like me : D).
Now... about that pad thing
There was a big fuss about the product, so, naturally, I wanted to watch the presentation. 10 seconds after the tablet appeared on stage I decided it failed all expectations. 1st bad thing: not widescreen. I mean it's kinda' widescreen, but still looks too bulky. 2nd bad thing: how idiot do you have to be to start the presentation by saying that "you can change the wallpaper". If you get to the point where you say _that_ in a presentation. That utterly means - "this product's got nothing special... so we're gonna show you how well it does what other products do". Apart from the amazing ability to change a wallpaper, they kept the UI of the iPhone. Why would you do that? That user interface was designed for small devices. I watched the presentation for about 10-20 minutes more, than I just got angry and ditched it.
Leaving the design behind, I started looking for some technical specs about the product. Surely if it looks bad, at least it works OK, but no, it's way worse than I expected. Here's the official list: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/ and I'm going to walk you through it, skipping a few areas of course : D.
Part 1: Display: "widescreen" with a screen resolution of 1024 * 768 : D how cool is having a 4:3 screen stretched to the bone. Are those rectangular pixels or what?
Part 2: Wireless and cellular. The idea of having such features is outrageous. I mean you're going to walk around with a A4 sized phone around? You're going to shove it in your pocket? You're going to permanently carry it in your bag and wait for people to call you? Imagine how a 0.7 kg phone goes off on vibrate : )).
Part 3: Input and output & In the box. I know I'm not taking them in order, but this relates to further parts of this description. So, the device has: a Dock Connector, 3.5 mm stereo headphone Jack and a SIM card tray (again book sized phones). Does it feel like there's something missing? Anyone? Yes, of course... a USB. Not even one USB connector on this device. But wait, they have a solution: In the box: Dock Connector to USB cable. So... we're gonna carry a cable with us all the time, that's useful.
Part 4: 16GB Hard drive. I know you have larger versions as well, but they go incrementally by 100$, that's outrageous.
Part 5: Processor: 1GHz. So they made it as powerful as the Nexus One. Ow wait, no, they stripped out multitasking. I mean even the iPhone had multitasking. That fact alone makes this product less valuable than plain paper.
Part 6: Mail attachment support. What the hell is that? You're giving software specs? Like I can't even attach Open Office files? If a Comodore 64 had interent (I can't guarantee : )) ) it would be able attach anything. Mail is supposed to have attachments of any type.
Part 7: Battery and power. Charged via power addapter or USB to computer system. Hmmmm that's just wrong because you like have NO USB SLOTS.
Part 8: This does not appear at that link, but you can only install stuff from the apple store. Essentially, Apple decides what you are going to do with you're new rock.
There are several other parts I could write, but It's pretty much useless so I'l give you some links for further reading.
http://gizmodo.com/5458382/8-things-that-suck-about-the-ipad
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/27/defective_by_design/
And finally, how the ipad should have been like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIPjJElVx0U
So, everyone, I hope you can see the product sucks big time, and, as usually, have fun and enjoy guys.
