“It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers.”
..said the company who controls Flash.
Adobe on the iPad Lacking Flash Support
iPad: A Comprehensive Roundup of Opinions From the Web
Enough for the rumors and rambling, we wanted to give you an overview of how blogs reacted to the new device.
Here’s what the internet is saying about the tablet iPad.
Daring Fireball - The iPad Big Picture
“Apple now owns and controls their own mobile CPUs. There aren’t many companies in the world that can say that. And from what I saw today, Apple doesn’t just own and control a mobile CPU, they own and control the hands-down best mobile CPU in the world. Software aside (which is a huge thing to put aside), it may well be that no other company could make a device today matching the price, size, and performance of the iPad. They’re not getting into the CPU business for kicks, they’re getting into it to kick ass.”
Information Architects - The iPad and the Publishing Industry
“Fact is, if it is even easier to read on a tablet than on a paper, I don’t see any reason why I should continue to buy books. “
Pentagram - Five Ways the iPad Will Change Magazine Design
“The new iPad from Apple, presented in typical Steve Jobs fashion as game-changing, will, in fact, revolutionize the way we read magazines. Combining the rich visual content of a print publication, the ever-changing immediacy of a website, and the portability of an e-book reader, the iPad is something new.”
Mossberg - First Impressions of the New Apple iPad
“It’s about the software, stupid. While all sorts of commentators were focusing on how much Apple’s new $499 iPad tablet computer looks like an oversized iPhone, the key to whether it can be the first multi-function tablet to win wide public acceptance probably lies in whether consumers perceive it as a suitable replacement for a laptop in key scenarios. And that, in my view, depends heavily on the software and services that flow through its handsome little body.”
Guardian - Can the Apple iPad save newspapers?
“If Steve Jobs would save journalism, it might be possible that publishers would get him the Holy Grail.”
LifeHacker - The Problem with the Apple iPad
“For most people, netbooks have very limited sex appeal. There’s no question they do what they’re supposed to do, or that they do it well, but last I checked, the netbook hasn’t really filled that “When you just need a lightweight computer to do some lightweight surfing, word processing, etc.” need. The iPad is aiming straight at this market, and could potentially succeed where netbooks haven’t.”
MacWorld - The iPad’s five best surprises
“The iPad’s huge screen—which has the potential to be great for working with email and text—and the announcement of iWork for iPad (see my next item) had several Macworld editors crossing their fingers that Apple wouldn’t hold back on this obvious feature. This time around, Apple didn’t disappoint. “
“You may or may not be in the queue for an iPad in March, April, May or June. Or you may decide to stay your hand for version 2.0 or 3.0. But believe me the iPad is here to stay and nothing will be quite the same again. “
What’s your take? Let us know.
iPad, Information and the Form Factor Problem.
The reaction to the official iPad announcement has been hilarious. Pretty much like every official announcement, it seems like you have to either completely love or hate something in order to give your opinion about it. But while this way of thinking doesn’t work in real life, so it doesn’t in technology. You can’t judge a new device in 2 hours, just as you can’t in a week or in one month. And please notice that the iPad it’s only been announced: it will be out in 2 months.
That said, I think people are missing the whole point about Apple’s newest creation when comparing it to a big sized iPhone. Sure, it looks like a fat iPhone if you ask me. Point is, it doesn’t feel like an iPhone at all and the fact that it looks like the iPhone is actually the explanation of what I’m talking about. Plain and simple. Don’t get me wrong: the user interface is very similar to iPhone OS, it takes some elements from it (toolbars, buttons, icons) and pushes them into another dimension. I don’t know how this OS will be named, but iPad OS doesn’t sound bad at all. The big difference between the looks like and the feels like problems lie in the screen size itself. Many people can’t look beyond the form factor thing and they just go out and say “it’s a larger iPhone”. I can’t blame them if they don’t have a vision. By creating a product with more screen real estate, Apple will provide a device with more information on it. All those menus that you used to have in a dedicated tab in your iPhone can now be accessed with a single tap on a button without losing the information you’re looking at. It’s in the user flow where the iPad will be different from the iPhone: you can do things faster, in one place, without losing or breaking the experience.
Take a look at the Mail app, my favorite so far: you don’t have to go back and forth between the inbox and the single message view, you just hit a button and boom, here’s the “contextual menu” for that, with the inbox listing your incoming messages. I can go on with this for hours, but I’m pretty sure Tweetie for the iPad won’t have a single compose window anymore.
Second of all, the iPad we saw yesterday isn’t about tech specs. Neither it will be in 6 months or later this year. Sure it’s got a pretty aluminium case, a gorgeous shiny screen and 802.11n wifi, but I believe Steve wanted to put the focus on the reason you need it rather than plain numbers.
“We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts - we want to make the best tech, but have them be intuitive. It’s the combination of these two things that have let us make the iPad”
A great piece of tech, which has to be so great and yet intuitive to establish itself in a third category of products. This leads me to the question “Do I need an iPad?”. Yes I do. Speaking for myself, I need a device I could carry around the house, in the garden or in bed that lets me access and work with my stuff. That lets me check and manage my stuff. Couldn’t I use an iPhone for that? I could, and I’m currently using it. But this doesn’t mean it could be a lot better and most of all, the iPhone doesn’t let me manage data. I check things (stats, docs) but I don’t manage them. The iPhone is a device meant for “checking and accessing the most important things of your life” on the go. Nobody ever said it could be your mobile office, and Office clones apps in the App Store don’t justify that. I don’t write posts on my iPhone. With an iPad running iWork, I probably will.
I’m not saying the iPad it’s perfect, because it’s not. The OS is still incomplete, it’s a first iteration and we all know how much the iPhone got better in 3 years. I’m just saying that the iPad has a reason to exist, that there’s room for a 3rd category of products and Apple can fill that empty space. And as Josh Helfferich said yesterday “this is how past computing dies — with thunderous applause”.
MsgFiler Giveaway Winners Announced
Thanks everyone for the comments on the MsgFiler review & giveaway. Also, I’d like to thank Adam Tow for the 10 licenses he gave to MacStories.
Here are the names of the winners:
Devin Stoker
Francesco Folino
George B Hopkins
Samuel
Olive
Hector Lee
Hobby
Fabrizio Lodi
Davide85
Lukas
You’ll receive the license in your inbox in a few hours. Also, don’t get forget that we have a Rocketbox giveaway up and running and another one will be posted tonight.
Cheers!
An Interview with Michael Flarup About the iPad
Right after Steve unveiled the iPad yesterday, I started wondering what was the developers’ reaction to the product. I had the chance to chat with Michael Flarup, a graphic designer who’s currently working at Robocat. We reviewed Robocat’s first application, Outside, and we loved it.
Enough for the presentations, let’s see what Michael thinks about the iPad.
Will Shipley on iBooks Copying Delicious Library
“As a creator, part of what I seek is recognition, immortality. I don’t work for Apple, or Google (I’ve been offered jobs & buyouts) because I want the fame myself. It’s my shot at immortality. My designs are my children. So it stinks when I feel like Steve might get the fame for my innovation. I lose my children, as it were.”
But your children aren’t really yours. They have lives of their own. So when your designs do change the world, you have to accept it. You have to say, ‘Ok, this was such a good idea, other people took it and ran with it. I win.”
iPad: Six Videos You Need To Watch
So, we decided to avoid the usual “specs & features” post and start writing an in-depth post for tomorrow. In the meantime, I aggregated some of the best videos from the web and embedded right into this post, so that you can watch them before the keynote videos goes online.
Enjoy!
SublimeVideo: If the Future of HTML5 Is Like This, It’s Going to Be Delicious
Technology moves forward everyday, but good ideas stay. That’s what I think everyday when I review a good application, and when I see the effort a developer puts in creating something good for the users. Now, what could ever happen if a good idea meets the technology of the future and even brings some eye candy to it?
SublimeVideo is the greatest example of what I’m talking about. It’s a video player, based on HTML5 that shows an amazing attention to the user interface design and even brings a lot of innovations. Developed by Jilion, SublimeVideo it’s currently a demo, but it already allows you to watch the video in full window mode: Vimeo and Youtube don’t let you do that, and their HTML5 video players are slow and buggy. Also, the Jilion guys promise to implement the full screen mode with the next releases (by alt-clicking the video, only available in the WebKit Nightlies now).
But Sublime doesn’t stop at full screen goodness: it’s got sleek in / out transitions, gorgeous controllers (even more beautiful than QuickTime’s ones), live resizing and a draggable. It’s basically a sexier QuickTime that uses HTML5.
Be sure to check it out, and follow the updates from the Jilion guys. This is going to be awesome.
BREAKING: The Last, Probably Real Photo of the Tablet
Some weird things happened tonight. If you’ve been following @Jason on Twitter you might have noticed that he posted a lot of tweets regarding the Tablet, saying that he’s been under NDA until midnight, but that the agreement was over and he could talk. Unfortunately he didn’t post any pic. But checking Jason’s timeline I noticed he was talking with @MattPRD about tablet upgrades, builds and apps: specific stuff.
Here are some tweets:
“@Jason DM me your Apple ID. I want to test the Tablet’s video conferencing.” Link
“@Jason No? Does Chess come native in the upgrade? I want them to unlock the store so I can get the Ustream Broadcaster.” Link
“@MattPRD I got chess in build 1.02b – did u upgrade?” Link
Turns out this Matt Schlicht guy (@MattPRD) was in the same “beta testing” group of @Jason, and he has been testing the device for the device. And tonight he posted a photo of the tablet saying:
“It’s past midnight, no longer under NDA. Had an amazing video chat with @Jason via Apple Tablet.” Link
What really makes me think is that these two people are well known enterpreneurs, so I don’t see the reason they should be creating fake rumors and photos.
But at least, this time we’ve got 4 hours left to find out the truth.