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Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: jasonrandolph on January 27, 2010, 04:25:27 pm

Title: iPad
Post by: jasonrandolph on January 27, 2010, 04:25:27 pm
Michael had some very interesting observations on what the iPad means to photographers.  I think one thing that wasn't mentioned, but may prove to be invaluable, is the ability to bring your portfolio with you.  Granted, the screen may prove to be a bit on the small side to fully appreciate image quality (AKA pixel peeping), but how about pulling out your iPad while meeting with a potential client for a quick impromptu slideshow?  Sure, you can pull out your Macbook or netbook, but if the iPad is as functional as the iPhone, instead of booting up a computer, you hit the home button and you're there.  

Or how about in-person portfolio reviews?  Sure, the iPad will never replace prints IMHO, but you can bring along a heck of a lot more photos for showing on an interface that is very intuitive.  

Will it be a game changer?  Like Michael said, it's too early to tell, but the potential is definitely there.
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 27, 2010, 04:26:48 pm
I read your article Michael, and I just don't see it.

In order for your prediction to come true the iPad would need to become a huge seller. I just don't see that. If you scrape off all the hype the iPad is really just an iPod touch with a larger screen that costs 2X as much as a net book. I own an iPod touch why would I want to spend another $500+ just to get a bigger screen?

A net book will give you much more power for much less cost and at about the same size and weight. If I am going to carry something that large into the field or want to shoot tethered to something I would much rather have a full fleged laptop or even a net book and be able to run real software on it.

I also do not really see it as a game changer in the book world either. With MP3 players or the iPod/iTunes system you can carry thousands of songs around with you in a very small device. This is cool because you often want to listen to a bunch of different things a song at a time. For example on a plane trip or a long commute home I might listen to 20 random songs by 20 different artists from 20 different albums.

I would however never read 20 random chapters from 20 different books by 20 different authors so why do I need to carry around hundreds of books? I also do not need an e-reader to look at magazine or newspaper content as I can allready get all of that that I want for free online that is easily available on my netbook or regular laptop. Or I can spend 50 cents or a few bucks and buy a newspaper or magazine to read on the plane or on the train and not worry about breaking anything or dead batteries. Yes your prediction about video content for news magazines online will come true but we are allready moving in that direction and have been for years and still will be when the iPad crashes and burns.
Title: iPad
Post by: michael on January 27, 2010, 04:37:15 pm
I have added a mention of the portfolio presentation opportunity. It was an oversight to leave it out.

As for "reading 20 random chapters from 20 different books by 20 different authors", I'm afraid that you've missed the point and its a straw-man argument at best. I have been using a Sony Reader for the past six months when I travel and love it (sort of – I hate the device, but I love the convenience).

I usually have at least two and sometimes more books on the go at the same time; one fiction and one non-fiction. I often buy hardcovers when something new comes out that interests me. With a reader I can carry them all with me and switch back and forth any time. Traveling with two or three books, especially hard covers, just doesn't fly – literally.

In any event, Apple disagrees with you since they are manufacturing and intend on selling 10 million iPads in the first year. That's the beginning of a game changing technology.

Michael
Title: iPad
Post by: tom_l on January 27, 2010, 04:49:46 pm
As a photographer, i was hoping for something else, i was looking for a netbook-style machine with great screen that will replace a netbook/notebook on location for Db shooting with a view camera on location. I hasn't Firewire, it won't run C1 or Lightroom, and I'm not sure i would handle 60 MP files (not processing, only opening and zooming). Well I'm continuing with my 12" low budget laptop.

but, i really really see the importance of the ipad for Apple and the industry.
It is all about content: when the iPhone was released, I would never have imagined to whole rush for Apps. People ares still ready to pay for something. Not only will they run little apps, they will buy and play music, read books, and last but not least, this can bring back young people to the 21st century newspaper. I'm not saying it's a great thing, I don't know if the free content actually available on newspaper www sites will survive. but I'm sure things will change...somehow.


Tom
Title: iPad
Post by: Del on January 27, 2010, 05:28:58 pm
I think it is quite exciting, even after all the drama attending to its introduction.  I've been waiting for an e-reader and am looking forward to purchasing one.  If the on screen experience is what I expect it to be, I'll use it a great deal. The real test for me however will be for subscription based online content-I'm willing to pay for a good experience in that area-photography sites included.  

I'm also excited about the potential to use it as a storage device for photographs in the field, without the need to take along the notebook.  Using it for the portfolio also sounds great-assuming the quality is there.

Finally, I like to watch TV and surf the net at the same time-this seems like just the right device for that as well.  I'll be one of the first-voting with the credit card is what will really determine its success.  I do wish that AT&T was not the single source, but I'm guessing that too will pass.
Title: iPad
Post by: John.Murray on January 27, 2010, 05:35:44 pm
I'm *very* dissapointed - I was honestly hoping for a device that runs OS X.....

I'm not sure the extension of yet another platform (iPod/iPhone) is really a great idea - it certainly isn't a good fit for me.
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 27, 2010, 05:39:57 pm
i would love to see an ipad sized thing to support tethered shooting, 60mpix raw files,.....but it is obviously not possible....YET....a full blown mbp can hardly manage all this....

maybe expectations were just too high?

afaik the kindle sells for 500 and does one thing....only....

i love my iphone....and i always thought that it is a mediocre phone with unbelievable daily computing power....and the ipad is a lot more computing power with a large beautiful screen....so i can do my email, browsing, simple office stuff (expenses, letters, presentations,.....) plus it does does video and all this for 10 hours....

netbooks are a joke...small screen, and the worst: terrible OS....anyone ever brought a laptop to show a presentation? does not matter if the presentation (or slide show) is up in a minute or 3....this is instant....my agent has wowed clients with presentations on the first iphone.....it is up an running as fast as they can say:show me....

the hardware will only get better....the software (OS) is just starting to warm up....this is not a full fledged laptop or computer, but can handle everything 90% of all people do on computers all day long...and it will change the way people handle books, mags any printed material (education!!!!!)....

for photographers it will change the way our work is viewed....even more screen viewing....

not sure how this will work in a professional workflow....canon refuses to put wifi N in their grips, so raw wifi tethering is still out....but i can see a set up where i shoot and 1 (or 2 or 3) ipads are around the room browsing the instant web gallery (from jpgs) the canon broadcasts.....not sure how i could attach any looks to those jpgs though....

anyone who has ever worked with the onone dslr iphone app knows what is possible.....

i have a 16gb iphone with 3000 images (snaps of the last 5 years, several portfolios and pics from the iphone cam), 50 or 60 albums, some video+ one full lenght feature, about 50 apps (incl navigation 1+gb) and still have room....so i am not sure why i would need more then the 16gb ipad...other then wanting more....and i could not care less about 3g on it.....so for me the 500 is a good perfect....this will not replace my computer....in any way....but i will spend a lot less time on the main computer....

i am very disappointed that there is no ichat....i am sure this is a telecom political decision....and sucks....

i am looking forward to ipad/iphone os 4.0......and aperture 3.0 and the fun things that might happen with an ipad integration in that workflow....(remote screens, camera control,....)

this is only the beginning....do yourself a favor and watch mr microsoft's (ballmer) reaction to the original iphone announcement....this is all about the OS.....ease of use....

Title: iPad
Post by: feppe on January 27, 2010, 06:00:48 pm
Engadget has a good iPad hands-on video (http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/apple-ipad-first-hands-on/) - and about 300 other iPad stories on their main page.

The photo gallery app demo starts at 5:30.

I have to say the UI looks amazing, and it's blazingly fast and responsive.
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 27, 2010, 06:07:23 pm
Quote from: michael
I have added a mention of the portfolio presentation opportunity. It was an oversight to leave it out.

As for "reading 20 random chapters from 20 different books by 20 different authors", I'm afraid that you've missed the point and its a straw-man argument at best. I have been using a Sony Reader for the past six months when I travel and love it (sort of – I hate the device, but I love the convenience).

I usually have at least two and sometimes more books on the go at the same time; one fiction and one non-fiction. I often buy hardcovers when something new comes out that interests me. With a reader I can carry them all with me and switch back and forth any time. Traveling with two or three books, especially hard covers, just doesn't fly – literally.


Michael

No Micheal I get the point and you just made it even clearer. You already have an e-reader a Sony one, I have a Kindle I got from Amazon. Those are great devices for reading books which historically have black text on a white page. With my Kindle I get the same thing, and I can download content for free on a great 3G network without paying for service coverage.

In your essay you said

Quote
This being the case, with screen-based magazines, in many cases rather than photographs in an article being stills, they will be stills that at the touch of a finger may become a motion sequence. A shot of the winning touchdown in a Sports Illustrated story on the Superbowl becomes a video clip of the action. A photograph of a child being rescued from the rubble in Haiti becomes a short vignette on efforts to save the rescued child's life, and comments by the medical staff on their travails.

We already have that, and it is called the web. Right now for free on billions of devices world wide you can go to www.si.com and do just that. The iPad does not change this at all. If publishers think they can get people to drop $500+ dollars on an e-reader and then pay for content they can get for free online they are sadly mistaken. Why would I pay for the e-reader version of Sports Illustrated to read about the Superbowl when I can do it on their website or a thousand others for free. Not to mention the average person has several TVs and gets several hundred TV Channels.

also from your essay
Quote
But when glossy magazines like Sports Illustrated and National Geographic move to the iPad environment, they will want high quality video along with their high quality stills.
funny they have been on the web for years, why would the iPad environment have anything to do with it?

Quote
In any event, Apple disagrees with you since they are manufacturing and intend on selling 10 million iPads in the first year. That's the beginning of a game changing technology.

I am sure that Apple will sell a bunch in the first year, that does not make it game changing technology. There are roughly 500 million people just in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Japan. Not to mention the billions in the rest of the developed world. True game changing technology would mean selling way more than 10 million. For example more Blu Ray players were sold than that last year in the USA alone yet Blu Ray has hardly been a game changer.

If you were National Geographic would you rather develop high quality content that billions of people could see or develop high quality content than only 10 million can see?


Title: iPad
Post by: dkosiur on January 27, 2010, 06:09:04 pm
Who really cares about what OS the iPad is running, as long as it gets the job done? Lacking C1 or even Lightroom, the iPad may not be the answer for professional photographers working in the field, but it could meet the needs of other levels of photographers. I, for one, am considering one, as it would replace my iPod Touch, a Kindle (if I had one), and an Epson P-xxxx viewer.

BTW, Apple did announce the Camera Connection Kit on their web site, so you can transfer images directly from either your camera (via USB) or SDHC  card. Not sure how you'd get the images from the iPad to your main computer once you're back home (USB? Wi-Fi?).

I believe Michael may have written some time ago about some of the photo-editing programs available for the iPhone and it appears that some of them are rather capable. Imagine what they may look like when the app developers take those same apps and utilize the new SDK to use all of the iPad's real estate and processing capabilities. Photo-stitching and HDR are already possibilities. (Tethering and 60 Gb images don't interest me, sorry.)

So, there's already significant capabilities, and a great deal of potential in the iPad, as Michael said.

And don't talk to me about the "power" of netbooks until someone actually compares similar tasks on them and the iPad...

Dave
Title: iPad
Post by: Bill VN on January 27, 2010, 06:10:47 pm
I don't know if it's possible, but if Phase One came up with a cable interface and ported Capture One to the iPad, it would result in an excellent device for tethered shooting.
Title: iPad
Post by: feppe on January 27, 2010, 06:13:35 pm
Quote from: Wally
If you were National Geographic would you rather develop high quality content that billions of people could see or develop high quality content than only 10 million can see?

That's not the point. The point is that iPad and other tablets are a game changer in the long term. Sure it would be foolish for NG to stop publishing the magazine - but at the same time it would be foolish for them to put their head in the sand, and waking up to the cold hard reality music and movie industry are tackling because it became easier to pirate than to pay for the content.

There will be no magazines or newspapers in dead tree form in 5-20 years, and this is one of the first baby steps in that direction.
Title: iPad
Post by: feppe on January 27, 2010, 06:16:01 pm
Quote from: dkosiur
BTW, Apple did announce the Camera Connection Kit on their web site, so you can transfer images directly from either your camera (via USB) or SDHC  card. Not sure how you'd get the images from the iPad to your main computer once you're back home (USB? Wi-Fi?).

Combined with an Eyefi card you (should) get your digital ground glass.
Title: iPad
Post by: PierreVandevenne on January 27, 2010, 06:26:55 pm
AFAIC, utterly disappointed. Doesn't fit the bill as a music player (should fit in my jeans pocket), as a book reader (e-ink is really good on my eyes for those 400 pages marathons, should fit in my coat pocket), as a computer substitute (OS has too many issues for that purpose), as a backup device (lacks capacity, add yet another card reader, to read cards that will soon have more capacity than the device itself), as a GPS (too big), as a writing instrument (well a cautious maybe on that one), as a game console (either to big compared to small consoles, underpowered vs real ones). But could still be the first generation of game changing devices in terms of magazines/daily news/video journals/multi-media textbooks/data entry devices/wikipedia interface...). When one thinks about it, there isn't anything about the thing that's innovative, except maybe for the fact that it is one of the first Apple products that isn't overpriced (my guess is that Apple has big expectations for its margins on content delivery). It was a bit unreal to hear how cool the "technology" of "pixel doubling" worked. Multi-touch, the Apple way, on a larger device is really nice though. Could be that all it needs are a few killer apps... As far as using it to show a portfolio, virtually every screen as a card reader build in nowadays...

FWIW, wait and see, I am not a buyer at this point.
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 27, 2010, 06:31:04 pm
Quote from: Wally
No Micheal I get the point and you just made it even clearer. You already have an e-reader a Sony one, I have a Kindle I got from Amazon. Those are great devices for reading books which historically have black text on a white page. With my Kindle I get the same thing, and I can download content for free on a great 3G network without paying for service coverage.



funny they have been on the web for years, why would the iPad environment have anything to do with it?



I am sure that Apple will sell a bunch in the first year, that does not make it game changing technology. There are roughly 500 million people just in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Japan. Not to mention the billions in the rest of the developed world. True game changing technology would mean selling way more than 10 million. For example more Blu Ray players were sold than that last year in the USA alone yet Blu Ray has hardly been a game changer.

If you were National Geographic would you rather develop high quality content that billions of people could see or develop high quality content than only 10 million can see?


so you bought a book reader for 500$...without any chance of that thing doing anything else...ever...but the ipad won't sell? there is nothing i saw that apple won't get the same agreement with publishers (a share of the ebook price covers the 3g charges worldwide) especially since the ipad uses a non propriatory ebook file system.....AND you can actually read all your kindle downloads on it as well....already....

if you haven't realized that smartphones (and the iphone especially) HAVE changed the web already maybe it's time to educate yourself....

you forget that all content produced for the ipad already has a 75 million user base....TODAY...

really read up on talks between apple and pretty much everybody in publishing....from mags (conde nast and all other major players) to books to the educational market (mc graw hill leaked the ipad last night....).....this will be in every school...everywhere....

and btw: this will also be in: stores, hospitals,....anywhere you see a clipboard now....

but of course some people prefer to carry a kindle, a mp3 player, a video player and their smartphone.....

Title: iPad
Post by: Paul Sumi on January 27, 2010, 06:42:24 pm
Too much of an "in-between" device for me in terms of size and power.  It doesn't replace a notebook computer, to me it's basically a super-sized iPod Touch.

I'm interested to see if anyone offers an app which can display/edit RAW files.  If not, it's just another thing to have to unpack to go through the x-ray at the airport.   Photoshop for iPad, anyone?

Paul

ps: a lot of humor about the iPad on the Internet:
Title: iPad
Post by: thewanderer on January 27, 2010, 06:42:46 pm
Question>>

1, does it allow for a att or verizon mobile card plug in?   Given I have a black berry that i hate for phone, mobile internet, mobile email, and a att mobile usb card for moblie connections for real internet usage on my macbook, how many more devices do we need for mobile connections that range for 35 -75 a month.  Heck its getting to cheaper to get health insurance than to stay online
Title: iPad
Post by: wtlloyd on January 27, 2010, 06:55:42 pm
First, before commenting on the i-Pad itself, let me say, Michael, that I was really knocked out by the writing in this article...the opening paragraphs are just so.....right!

I also am persuaded, as a 5D2 owner who has never bothered to even try the video functions, that you may well be correct about a new reason for convergence - it has always seemed to me that DSLR video was an answer looking for a question. Eh, well, that's probably just ME.

The i-Pad looks fantastic - a game changer. I own no Apple products currently, and have never used i-tunes. But I have had a Kindle2 for almost a year now. I dismiss it for its faults as much as I embrace the i-Pad for it's virtues. What I love about it's capacity is that I have books I love and read many times on it, as well as some I want to or should want to read...most of these were free, classics past their copyright time. AND, I have PDF's of every equipment manual I need, as well as a number of books on photography and birding published in PDF format. All in one device.

The E-ink technology in the Kindle falls short. The lack of backlighting is the worst and largest part of its failure, to me. No touch screen, and the inability to organize contents in any sort of folder structure are interface FAILS.  And lack of color...? Well, I knew what it was when I bought it. Many things about the Kindle ARE right, but I soon stopped carrying it as I could only read in bright light environments.

The i-Pad is brilliant in that the interface is hugely functional AND familiar. The use of IP-S LED screen is a blessing, and what will make it a huge success in the Photographic community. I don't want to load RAW files on it at all, much less process them. But, as mentioned, this looks to be a killer portfolio display device.

Convergence: I stopped carrying a pager and a watch once my cellphone could fit comfortably in my pocket. Then I upgraded to a Blackberry a year or two ago, and would never, ever go back to a standard cell....In the i-Pad, having a netbook capability with the size, weight and format of an e-reader, all in a device with touch-screen functionallity...well, give me a built-in phone with a bluetooth earpiece in the i-Pad, and I will say the future has arrived and found not wanting.

I can't wait to get one, although I expect the 64GB model to be closer to $900 than $500...it's Apple, doncha know?
Title: iPad
Post by: Josh-H on January 27, 2010, 07:00:03 pm
Put me squarely in the camp of 'I just dont get it' as a tool for photographers. As a photographic tool I personally can see little to no use for this product.

For me the disappointment is it wont run lightroom or Photoshop - makes it pretty useless for anything except showing a portfolio of images - which I can do perfectly well on my macbook pro without any issues (as well as running my image editing software).

In terms of view of using for preview of captured images.... I can 'sort' of see this in the field.. but in the studio.. forget it. A nice big 26"+ monitor is what the client wants to see images on - not a 10" screen.

The new ipad for me is going to be a great tool for browsing the web and email - unfortunately, I don't need yet another tool for this purpose. I dont even know if it will be as good as a kindle for reading books as I prefer the 'kindle' style of paper like screen.

Time may well prove me wrong.. but initially.. I dont think this is a product for me.
Title: iPad
Post by: Dansk on January 27, 2010, 07:33:39 pm
I think this ipad has one chance at success. Apps.

Apps apps apps!

If this thing is going to fly it has to offer something new that we dont already have which as of now it doesnt at all IMO. The lack of ichat comment above is brilliantly observant and the fact that APPLE of all companies is deliberately shying away from digital aids for its end user in favor of pay systems??? Well they really have come full circle havent they... *cough cough microsoft cough cough*

Anyways back on my apps theory. I bought an iphone when they launched the 3G as i seldom if ever buy a first run anything. I was a longtime BlackBerry user which i absolutely loved for its excellent mobile email capabilities which is pretty much where the BB started, and stopped. They have been playing desperate catch up to Apple since the iphone launched after being the dominant leader for years and why?

Apps.

How do I know this? Because the iphone SUCKED completely SUCKED as a reliable phone and especially unreliable email service until we hit OS 3.x or thereabouts. I wrote e-complaint after e-complaint to Apple about all the problems i was having. I filled out 20 minute long surveys. I had so much grief i tried to return the damn thing but to no avail.

But in the meantime... All these really cool apps literally came out of nowhere and I have to admit i really started to dig the iphone as a toy and working aid utilizing GPS apps and other neato tools and much less as a strictly digital uplink tool which was all I thought I was initially buying ( and one that SUCKED again i might add ). So now after a mere year and a half of iphone life it seems to be working as well as my BB in terms of email but it still drops more calls than just about any phone I've ever had did ( last ten yrs that is ) and I dont have to mention to any of you how handy and cool some of the apps are so and its come soooo far in such a short time so this brings us to the ipad...

Coming full circle now when i look at this ipad and see that it really doesnt seem to be offering anything that will make me buy it I as of now see no need for it at all. But considering how the apps in my iphone have quickly made me forget about my BB and likely keep me the on iphone upgrade course for the future as it appears right now at least. Makes me have to think in order for the ipad to make a big shake up the apps are going to have to make it or break it for this device. The OS is iphone based likely for this sole reason and all the "new and wonderful" tablet apps that are likely to come out shortly will be interesting to see as I know I will be watching closely.

As for a photographers tool? Meh I see no reason at all that this in anyway will replace my laptop for shooting in the field nor for viewing images either proofing or display ( calibration anyone? ) just too much grief with little to no advantage unless booting up in two seconds is CRUCIAL to your sales tactics ( it sure wont make any difference to me ) then i just dont see it. Maybe others will have some insight that escapes us so far hence my post I'm curious to hear what everyone else is going to say about it too

Also regarding the comments of replacing all print media? Blah i8've been hearing this for years and ONE DAY this will happen but we still need to get everyone out there to pony up and BUY ONE which ten million units isnt going to mean squat for now. When sales hit 500 million I'll take those comments seriously. Look at HDTV for instance? Its still a poor implementation of dominance over conventional broadcasting. Its happening but much slower than everyone initially thought as the one reason again. Cost. Not everyone can run out and buy a brand new HDTV and advertisers still need to get their message out to all and so it is.

Interesting aside however that really has me thinking. Apparently the numbers of internet saturation are 40% of the worlds population are linked in and have their own access. 65% of the worlds pop has been online at some point on a cafe machine or a friends. With the launch of all these 3G type devices the forecasts are that 80% of the worlds population will have their own link within five years. Thats double, DOUBLE the volume of web users now that will be online within five years.

Half of the market is a very very serious impact and what are they going to want? I seriously doubt they will be searching out Napster... More than likely they'll play with whatever candy is already online such as youtube etc. When a new audience of that sizes enters an already existing forum it can and likely will change things substantially. This has me wondering whats next a lot more than this ipad does.

Long enough rant for ya?
Title: iPad
Post by: jnmoore on January 27, 2010, 07:42:11 pm
I think this is a game changer but it will take a few years to get traction.

One thing I've always wanted was to sit down and watch my hockey game and at the same time use Lightroom to view and rate a shoot etc. But all my photos are on a Drobo attached to my iMac.

I think its likely that there will be an app (or operating system upgrade) that will allow me to easily work remotely with Lightroom on my base machine (at least for some things) using the iPad. This may be very useful for photographers because you can review, rate and do minor editing on the iPad from anywhere in your home/studio. Or organize a slide show or client viewbox in the comfort of your lazyboy. Part of the issue here, of course, is that Lightroom has to be controlled remotely with a finger and not a mouse!

I thought this might be there on release but still think it is likely to happen. Time will tell ...
Title: iPad
Post by: Marlyn on January 27, 2010, 07:54:21 pm
Biggest annoyance for me for either the IPhone (which I love), or the new iPad  is no support for external keyboard.  (even the apple bluetooth one).
For me, typing on the little screen, or on screen KB just dosn't cut it.  If it could take a real KB,  I could do my day Job from lots of new places.

Regarding photography tools, it dosn't quite fit what I need over the netbook, and that is the ability to run camera remote control software, which can act as a digital ground glass, plus control camera functions automatically such as Focus.   I'd love something I can program that could control several camera settings for automated shooting, that fits in the pocket or the bag (iPad could do).
Not just shutter, but focus, shutter speed, apeture, etc.

As for non-photographer operations,  I think it could be handy, but time will tell.

Will be a wait-and-see I think for this one for me.  I like the look of it,  and if someone solves the issue above with software / cable, i'd get one on a flash.

Regards

Mark
Title: iPad
Post by: DiaAzul on January 27, 2010, 07:57:33 pm
Quote from: thewanderer
Question>>

1, does it allow for a att or verizon mobile card plug in?   Given I have a black berry that i hate for phone, mobile internet, mobile email, and a att mobile usb card for moblie connections for real internet usage on my macbook, how many more devices do we need for mobile connections that range for 35 -75 a month.  Heck its getting to cheaper to get health insurance than to stay online

Apple website says that they will be bringing out a 3G version in April. You should be able to stick your SIM in the iPAD, dependent upon whether there is a bundled deal or not. At a couple of hundred big ones for the iPAD itself there may be some bundling which reduces the upfront cost of the device in return for committing to a contract for mobile usage.

You raise a fair point about multiple subscriptions. The market is pushing quickly to the point where mobile plans will become available with pooled data limits across mulitple SIMS to cater for the multiple device user. SIM for the phone, the laptop, the iPAD, you washing machine, the cat, the dog, and the monkey's uncle. It is in the mobile industry's interests to push as many SIMS into as many devices as possible and there is a finite limit on peoples budget, expect change in billing plans over the next 18 months or so.

Biggest gap on the iPAD is what appears to be no support for SMS, MMS, Instant Messaging, Chat, Presence, Address Book and all the other collaborative tools which we are increasingly dependent upon. There is a movement starting towards HD (720P) video conferencing and Apple just missed the opportunity to make this a real ground breaking device. Perhaps the next couple of days will bring more news, but for  the money it seems to be the iNewton rather than the iChanger.

More kerching for Apple
Title: iPad
Post by: thewanderer on January 27, 2010, 08:06:18 pm
I would really like to see that simm card exhcange thing,,or bundle thing,,

maybe photomechanic will come up with a quick browser for quick editing,, if the unit wont be cs or lightroom capable, at least we can can the culls
Title: iPad
Post by: dwood on January 27, 2010, 08:08:47 pm
I'm pretty excited about the iPad as a delivery system for newspapers, magazines, books and video. I'll be anxious to see what content will be available at release time. A couple of the concerns would be that it appears as though the iPad doesn't support flash and that there's no multitasking. I'm hopeful that both of these will be addressed going forward.
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 27, 2010, 09:30:58 pm
Quote from: Marlyn
Biggest annoyance for me for either the IPhone (which I love), or the new iPad  is no support for external keyboard.  (even the apple bluetooth one).
For me, typing on the little screen, or on screen KB just dosn't cut it.  If it could take a real KB,  I could do my day Job from lots of new places.

Regarding photography tools, it dosn't quite fit what I need over the netbook, and that is the ability to run camera remote control software, which can act as a digital ground glass, plus control camera functions automatically such as Focus.   I'd love something I can program that could control several camera settings for automated shooting, that fits in the pocket or the bag (iPad could do).
Not just shutter, but focus, shutter speed, apeture, etc.

As for non-photographer operations,  I think it could be handy, but time will tell.

Will be a wait-and-see I think for this one for me.  I like the look of it,  and if someone solves the issue above with software / cable, i'd get one on a flash.

Regards

Mark

apple showed a dock and a BT keyboard...the ipad works with the apple keyboard....which might be a good setup for at home, but if you are thinking of taking the keyboard and ipad on the road, you are missing the point....might as well get an macbook....

depending on which camera you have, canon and nikon can be controlled with iphone (or ipad)...several options....

this would be a chance for DMF guys to come up with something....but i am pretty sure they won't....again...
Title: iPad
Post by: BernardLanguillier on January 27, 2010, 11:32:38 pm
Quote from: pschefz
so you bought a book reader for 500$...without any chance of that thing doing anything else...ever...but the ipad won't sell? there is nothing i saw that apple won't get the same agreement with publishers (a share of the ebook price covers the 3g charges worldwide) especially since the ipad uses a non propriatory ebook file system.....AND you can actually read all your kindle downloads on it as well....already....

but of course some people prefer to carry a kindle, a mp3 player, a video player and their smartphone.....

As a Mac and iPod touch owner, I personnally feel that the iPad is a poor device to read books:

- its battery life is way too short, people just want to keep an ebook reader in their bag litteraly for ever and not to have to think about recharding the batteries every 10 hours. It only makes sense if it used for other things also and therefore recharged frequently,
- it is too heavy,
- it appears to be too thick.

In a world where many of use already have an iPod Touch/iPhone and a laptop, I don't see myself adding an iPad. If I were to add something it would be a dedicated eBook reader that is lighter, thinner and with much longer autonomy.

I feel that the best part of the iPad annoucement is that Apple has just allowed me to save 800 US$ to buy something else...

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: iPad
Post by: BernardLanguillier on January 27, 2010, 11:37:26 pm
Quote from: Josh-H
Put me squarely in the camp of 'I just dont get it' as a tool for photographers. As a photographic tool I personally can see little to no use for this product.

For me the disappointment is it wont run lightroom or Photoshop - makes it pretty useless for anything except showing a portfolio of images - which I can do perfectly well on my macbook pro without any issues (as well as running my image editing software).

Indeed... the closest existing device might be... an electronic photo frame.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: iPad
Post by: dwood on January 28, 2010, 12:26:08 am
Quote from: BernardLanguillier
As a Mac and iPod touch owner, I personnally feel that the iPad is a poor device to read books:

- its battery life is way too short, people just want to keep an ebook reader in their bag litteraly for ever and not to have to think about recharding the batteries every 10 hours. It only makes sense if it used for other things also and therefore recharged frequently,
- it is too heavy,
- it appears to be too thick.

In a world where many of use already have an iPod Touch/iPhone and a laptop, I don't see myself adding an iPad. If I were to add something it would be a dedicated eBook reader that is lighter, thinner and with much longer autonomy.

I feel that the best part of the iPad annoucement is that Apple has just allowed me to save 800 US$ to buy something else...

Cheers,
Bernard
My sense is that the iPad will potentially be an excellent device to read books...and magazines...and newspapers. Unlike units like the Kindle, Nook, and the Sony e-reader, the iPad is not only not a "can only do one thing" type of appliance, it's also not an e-ink based product. Publishers are going to be able to develop app's that will be far more interactive and rich, (embedded color graphics and video, for instance) and I believe, will provide users with a far more engaging user experience. Time will tell, of course, but I think Apple may sell a few of these things.
Title: iPad
Post by: Josh-H on January 28, 2010, 12:39:14 am
Quote
but I think Apple may sell a few of these things.

Of that there is no doubt  
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 28, 2010, 12:50:21 am
Quote from: BernardLanguillier
As a Mac and iPod touch owner, I personnally feel that the iPad is a poor device to read books:

- its battery life is way too short, people just want to keep an ebook reader in their bag litteraly for ever and not to have to think about recharding the batteries every 10 hours. It only makes sense if it used for other things also and therefore recharged frequently,
- it is too heavy,
- it appears to be too thick.

In a world where many of use already have an iPod Touch/iPhone and a laptop, I don't see myself adding an iPad. If I were to add something it would be a dedicated eBook reader that is lighter, thinner and with much longer autonomy.

I feel that the best part of the iPad annoucement is that Apple has just allowed me to save 800 US$ to buy something else...

Cheers,
Bernard


standby...one month....
weighs about the same as a comparable (size/thickness) magazine.....less then 1/2 inch thick...

i use my iphone permanently...and almost never as a phone....or mp3 player....so for me the idea of an iphone/itouch with a larger screen....running twice as fast and better apps is really nice....does nobody here use bento? iwork for the ipad looks amazing....i don't care too much about the photo functions...

i think you guys should check out the app store and see what these things can do...

i always thought the itouch was useless...no email, no browsing other then at a hotspot (when i am at home or at a cafe, i might as well bring a laptop....or now the ipad) and not even close to enough space for all my music....and no camera?

i still hate the fact that there is no front facing camera on the ipad.....flash will probably happen...this processor should be fast enough....or html5 will wipe flash out....either way, no big deal...
Title: iPad
Post by: Marlyn on January 28, 2010, 01:29:25 am
For photography purposes, I think the new Lenovo S10-3t netbook looks far more exciting than the iPad. (and note, I'm an avid iPhone user).

I have high hopes that a tablet style netbook will give  me a practical,  compact field shooting tether for camera control, plus all the other things I like about my Netbook now when travelling.

We will see !

Regards

Mark

Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 28, 2010, 02:13:10 am
Quote from: Marlyn
For photography purposes, I think the new Lenovo S10-3t netbook looks far more exciting than the iPad. (and note, I'm an avid iPhone user).

I have high hopes that a tablet style netbook will give  me a practical,  compact field shooting tether for camera control, plus all the other things I like about my Netbook now when travelling.

We will see !

Regards

Mark

that thing runs windows? so it would compare to a macbook...if anything....the ipad is not meant to be that.....at all....can't compare....
Title: iPad
Post by: Craig Arnold on January 28, 2010, 03:12:28 am
Photography is one of the very last domains for workstations.

No-one so far has mentioned the cloud. The computing model of the future is essentially limitless computing power in the cloud combined with smaller and lighter mobile devices for accessing that power.

We still don't quite have all the wireless bandwidth we need, but at some point there will be an iPad app that gives you finger-based access to all the editing functions you need whilst doing the heavy lifting in the cloud and just pushing the display to the Pad. All the computation-intensive work will be running in a datacenter, possibly one owned by Adobe, and you will get a monthly bill depending on your usage.

Already there are many remote desktop access applications for the iPhone, most of which will probably be ported to the iPad within a few weeks.

Only 64Gb on board? Who cares when I can have access to all the Terabytes I want on S3 and just download what I need at the time.

The device already does 100% of what 90% of computer users need, and with the eReader function too!

An approaching hurricane is presaged by a light breeze and a few drops of rain. This is the first look at the way all personal computers will be in the future.
Title: iPad
Post by: bcooter on January 28, 2010, 04:09:55 am
Quote from: Craig Arnold
We still don't quite have all the wireless bandwidth we need,


If this device was unleashed upon a world that had waiting content specifically designed for it, if there was a true virtual multi meda newstand where subscriptions were ready and waiting, if the battery would last longer, if it was a real computer or maybe even the world's biggest phone and if it didn't rely on just one network in the U.S. AT+T whose 3-g  makes an aol phoneline connection seem fast, I think it might have a chance.

Problem is none of that exists today and maybe never.

Maybe I'm wrong but I get the feeling that this is an answer to a question nobody is asking, or better put a partial answer to a lot of questions everyone is asking.

Now bottom line is will I buy one?   Maybe, but only as a virtual portfolio which is probably more novelty than substance.

Will I use it for all my e-mail, computer chores, even working the web . . . probably not, unless someone writes apps to tether a Canon or Nikon and it works fast.

Even then, it seems more toy that tool.

IMO

 BC

Title: iPad
Post by: chex on January 28, 2010, 04:47:01 am
Unless viewed as a PMP this is utterly pointless imo.

Jobs compared it to the kindle but an e-ink screen is infinitely superior for reading books, he compared it to a netbook but netbooks have infinitely better functoinality, it has a stupid proprietary sim card etc etc

I'd rather have a kindle to read books or an old 12" thinkpad tablet to do anything that this thing is meant to do and much, much more.
Title: iPad
Post by: Kevin Gallagher on January 28, 2010, 05:24:56 am
As much as I've loved being an early adopter on many things, I'm going to wait a bit on this. The idea of the e reader to me is great but I just feel that there are too many incompatible variants out there right now. My understanding is that the Kindle and others such as the Sony each have their own sources of reading materials. I'm also the guy who picked 8 track AND Beta
Title: iPad
Post by: Josh-H on January 28, 2010, 06:31:53 am
Quote
I'm also the guy who picked 8 track AND Beta

I also picked Laser Disc and HD DVD.....
Title: iPad
Post by: giorgiogu on January 28, 2010, 06:55:57 am
Uhm.... On the paper, if i will buy a tablet, probably i will consider more the HP Slate.
Looks like a real operating system will be in it so probably as photographer i will have all the tools i need that i actually have on my laptop.
But there is still quite a long time to go before both of this tablets will be on the market so will be interesting all the future development.
Title: iPad
Post by: BJL on January 28, 2010, 10:12:18 am
Wally asks why get an iPad in addition to his iPod Touch and Kindle.

Maybe with both those tools he has no need ... but for many the iPad might replace both those tools for about the same total cost. For me an iPad would eliminate the need for a Kindle, and maybe a laptop (a non-mobile computer + iPad could be enough for how I work), but I would keep my iTouch.


But in case you missed it Wally (and anyone else who sees little advantage over an iTouch or a smart phone):

1) the iPad will be far better for a lot visual media viewing than an iTouch: web browsing; photo and video viewing and basic photo manipulation; reading books, magazines and newspapers in electronic versions, etc. I suspect that magazines and newspapers like the New York Times wish to transition from free web-sites to primarily offering electronic subscriptions via Kindle, iPad and such devices: the magazine and newspaper desperately needs a new revenue source!

2) compared to book readers like Kindle, one obvious advantage is color and a far fuller web browser experience. Another is some limited content creation ability: email, iWork for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and whatever other iPad Apps come along. But Amazon has opened up software development opportunities for Kindle, so maybe this is where future Kindle models are headed too.

3) compared to laptops and flip-screen tablets, it is far more hand-holdable for reading books, websites and such, and "away from a desk" usage.


One obvious criticism is that the iPad is no substitute for a laptop (even the shrunken netbook variety) as far as offering a full computing environment; it is primarily a "hand-holdable media reader and communication tool". For now that does not matter much, as the iPad serves a different, more portable, hand-holdable "desk-free" niche, but I wonder what other similar one-piece "slate devices" we will see this year, probably running "Window 7 Mobile" with the option of Linux. How the race will go between iPad Apps and Windows 7 Mobile apps? How important will multi-tasking be, (absent from iPad for now), and will it be added to future iPad OS versions? The iPad's processor is not the same ARM processor as in the iTouch, so could easily have been designed with multi-tasking in mind.
Title: iPad
Post by: NikoJorj on January 28, 2010, 10:18:54 am
Quote from: PierreVandevenne
When one thinks about it, there isn't anything about the thing that's innovative, except maybe for the fact that it is one of the first Apple products that isn't overpriced [...]
Well, it's still about 2 times the price of its main rivals (kindle/nook/reader), but the old carpet-seller trick of "MSRP : 2 times what we (only) charge" still seems efficient.  
From what I see, it's basically an eBook reader, with some plus (can do a few other things, cool iphone-like interface) and minus (screen might be a bit difficult to read outdoors, but I'll wait to actually see one).

For we photographers, it may drive the netbooks, UMPC, small laptops category (what we actually need in the field) towards a friendlier interface with multitouch screens, which helps with small devices.
Title: iPad
Post by: BJL on January 28, 2010, 10:26:42 am
Quote from: pschefz
... anyone ever brought a laptop to show a presentation? does not matter if the presentation (or slide show) is up in a minute or 3....this is instant....my agent has wowed clients with presentations on the first iphone.....it is up an running as fast as they can say:show me...
For some of us (maybe not many) traveling with and handling presentations alone is a great attraction. I give a lot of presentations in many different venues, and like to have the complete control of using my own device, not relying an the venue's computer, fiddling with flash memory pens, hoping that all my file formats are supported (is Flash up to date on this computer?) and so on. I want to just walk in, attach my device to the VGA cable and be going in a few seconds, with slides, videos or even live execution of software ready to go. Laptops are usable, but a bit slow and clumsy.

One drawback for now is that the iPad software is a bit limiting for now: mostly iPhone Apps, with the only presentation creation tool being Keynote (iWorks), and no Flash support. I do hope for either rapid porting of OS X apps to iPad, or rapid development of iPad-specific Apps for content creation, or enhanced OS X app support added to a future "iPad OS", evolving beyond iPhone OS.
Title: iPad
Post by: soboyle on January 28, 2010, 11:14:03 am
I see the ipad as a new publishing platform, one that has great potential for photographers. I have been looking at the Kindle and Nook as potential future platforms for my work (if e ink would ever allow decent image display), but now the ipad offers that possibility now. Watch out, this is huge.
Title: iPad
Post by: NikosR on January 28, 2010, 11:42:00 am
Quote from: BJL
I suspect that magazines and newspapers like the New York Times wish to transition from free web-sites to primarily offering electronic subscriptions via Kindle, iPad and such devices: the magazine and newspaper desperately needs a new revenue source!

Well, what about subscription or pay to view web sites then? Limiting the content available for free doesn't necessarily mean a shift away from the www.
Title: iPad
Post by: image66 on January 28, 2010, 12:27:11 pm
I'm all confused.  Haven't I been working hard at downsizing all the electronic items I've been carrying with me these days?  

I need bigger pants pockets to carry this thing.

Oops, there's that stupid "Pants on the Ground" song again.
Title: iPad
Post by: feppe on January 28, 2010, 12:31:36 pm
Quote from: NikosR
Well, what about subscription or pay to view web sites then? Limiting the content available for free doesn't necessarily mean a shift away from the www.

All attempts at web subscriptions for newspapers and magazines have resulted in failure, often a miserable one. Not too many people are willing to pay for content which is available for free elsewhere, and the few sources which have tried subscriptions have failed to differentiate their content enough from those. Even if News Corp closes up entirely, there will be others who won't - and even if they do, there will be numerous free sources of news financed by taxes, such as BBC.
Title: iPad
Post by: Paul Sumi on January 28, 2010, 12:35:47 pm
Quote from: image66
I'm all confused.  Haven't I been working hard at downsizing all the electronic items I've been carrying with me these days?  

I need bigger pants pockets to carry this thing.

Gizmodo did an article on "how are we supposed to hold this thing?" right before the intro of the iPad:

http://gizmodo.com/5455844/tablet-sutra-ho...ne=true&s=i (http://gizmodo.com/5455844/tablet-sutra-how-are-we-supposed-to-hold-this-thing?skyline=true&s=i)

I think it addresses your question  

Paul
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 28, 2010, 12:42:44 pm
Quote from: BJL
But in case you missed it Wally (and anyone else who sees little advantage over an iTouch or a smart phone):

1) the iPad will be far better for a lot visual media viewing than an iTouch: web browsing; photo and video viewing and basic photo manipulation; reading books, magazines and newspapers in electronic versions, etc. I suspect that magazines and newspapers like the New York Times wish to transition from free web-sites to primarily offering electronic subscriptions via Kindle, iPad and such devices: the magazine and newspaper desperately needs a new revenue source!

There are several issues here that are all DOA for the iPad. When it comes to Web Browsing the lack of flash support is a non starter for many people. In order to be a hit with Johnny Q Public it needs to run Flash. If they can't go on Facebook and play Farmville they will hate it. Apple seems to be marketing this to people who play video games, well video games need flash to be online. If Johnny Q Public does not buy this in droves it will not take off. I have read a lot of people talk about how great it will be for newspapers and magazines to develop interactive content. However once again this is a non starter. If you were the New York Times would you rather spend big money developing an iPad platform or use flash and/or PDF to make interactive content that will work on just about any computer with a web connection.

Quote
2) compared to book readers like Kindle, one obvious advantage is color and a far fuller web browser experience.

That also means very limited battery life. My Kindle can work for days or weeks at a time without killing the battery. Apple claims the iPad will run for 10 hours. The Kindle also has an upperhand in the ereader market because unlike the iPad you do not have to spend any money for 3G service to download books, magazines, and newspapers. With the Kindle Amazon pays for that so you do not need to buy a data plan. Also as I said above without Flash how rich of a web browser experience can you have? Also go into any real bookstore and look at what the Best Sellers are in both fiction and non fiction and then look around the store in general. What you will find is that overwhelming majority of books sold are just black letters on a white page with no graphics. As such the iPad will have no advtantage over a Kindle.


Quote
Another is some limited content creation ability: email, iWork for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, and whatever other iPad Apps come along. But Amazon has opened up software development opportunities for Kindle, so maybe this is where future Kindle models are headed too.

I really do not think this is a selling point at all, because it is so limited, and because the iPad lacks a real keyboard. Anyone who seriously needs to do office type work will want a regular lap top, and the casusal user will already carry a blackberry, Droid, or other smart phone that can do the same things.


Quote
3) compared to laptops and flip-screen tablets, it is far more hand-holdable for reading books, websites and such, and "away from a desk" usage.

True but then again the short battery life and lack of flash support is a major let down


Title: iPad
Post by: Alex MacPherson on January 28, 2010, 01:12:05 pm
"iBookstore will be available in the US at launch." -Apple.com

Another point is that if I am going to carry something this big, why wouldn't I
just take my 13" MacbookPro?
Title: iPad
Post by: Dansk on January 28, 2010, 01:19:08 pm

 this is about it
Title: iPad
Post by: douglasf13 on January 28, 2010, 01:33:23 pm
Quote from: Dolce Moda Photography
"iBookstore will be available in the US at launch." -Apple.com

Another point is that if I am going to carry something this big, why wouldn't I
just take my 13" MacbookPro?

  That's how I feel.  As a MB Pro 13" and iphone user, I'm struggling to see the point for me.  Most of the reasons that I break out my macbook over my iphone aren't addressed with ipad, and vice-versa.  If the ipad ran osx, and was the full convergence of my iphone and macbook, I'd seriously consider it.   As it stands now, it's just adding a third thing to carry, rather than combining all of my gadgets into one.  

Title: iPad
Post by: dwood on January 28, 2010, 02:20:35 pm
One man's perspective on the iPad...
Stephen Fry piece (http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/01/28/ipad-about/)
Title: iPad
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on January 28, 2010, 02:30:00 pm
iPad may be 'perfect' or 'imperfect' - but surely it's all about the content!
Title: iPad
Post by: Bahi on January 28, 2010, 04:50:47 pm
Quote from: Wally
When it comes to Web Browsing the lack of flash support is a non starter for many people. In order to be a hit with Johnny Q Public it needs to run Flash.

Both YouTube (the biggest Flash content site for web browsers) and Vimeo now offer HTML 5 video in beta, which doesn't require (or even support) Flash and will eventually obviate the need for Flash. I expected Flash to be a problem for the iPhone till Google announced that it was recoding all YouTube content to play in h.264 for the iPhone. Vimeo has just announced the same thing.

http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_con...4&Itemid=96 (http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320094&Itemid=96)

As a side note (for most readers), in the UK, the BBC iPlayer is a hugely popular source of online television content, carrying all recently broadcast programmes and also offers an h.264 stream for iPhones that will work fine for the iPad.

Clever use of CSS may reduce and eventually eliminate another category of Flash use: the simple animation of text and graphics (as opposed to full motion video).

http://www.gesteves.com/experiments/starwars.html (http://www.gesteves.com/experiments/starwars.html)

In the example above, you can even select the text and copy it as it scrolls. It should work fine on the iPad—it certainly works on the iPhone.

Quote
Apple seems to be marketing this to people who play video games, well video games need flash to be online. If Johnny Q Public does not buy this in droves it will not take off. I have read a lot of people talk about how great it will be for newspapers and magazines to develop interactive content. However once again this is a non starter. If you were the New York Times would you rather spend big money developing an iPad platform or use flash and/or PDF to make interactive content that will work on just about any computer with a web connection.
There's no lack of games that are good, cheap or both for the iPhone/iPod platform already. In fact, many or most of the most frequently downloaded items from the app store are games--some of the most popular are free or cost 99 cents and will run on the iPad unmodified. There'll be a period during which newcomers to the iPhone or iPod Touch are disappointed when they can't play online games but it will be short—there's better stuff out there and it's not expensive. Ask any young user of an iPod Touch or iPhone; where I live, I can see people every day on any bus or train people engrossed in their iPod and iPhone games—and it's both kids and adults.
Quote
My Kindle can work for days or weeks at a time without killing the battery. Apple claims the iPad will run for 10 hours.
True, and that's a strong advantage of e-book readers. Another is the quality of the screens, which I find easier on the eye for long periods of reading.

That said, the iPhone and other large-screen, 3g phones all have poorer battery lfie than their small-screen, 2G counterparts but haven't suffered unduly from poor sales. Likewise, early colour devices like the first colour Palms had much worse battery life than their monochrome predecessors (which also lasted weeks) but in general, people have opted for functionality at the expense of battery life. The early iPods that had hard drives inside (with platters and spindles, not static flash memory) had relatively poor battery life compared with the  simple MP3 players that existed already but buyers eventually opted for the iPod's interface, storage capacity and transfer speed. The Kindle is great at what it does but does only one thing well. It will be routine to connect the iPad to to a computer to keep bookmarks, contacts and music, game and video purchases in sync—it charges during that time so it will become a routine thing till battery life improves.

My guess is that a whole bunch of people who hate being stuck behind a computer and don't like small laptops' screen quality and cramped feel will feel comfortable with this device. That is a huge opportunity for photographers—there's a real potential for sales of photography volumes at low cost but high unit volume. Someone looking at a photographer's web site or the credits on a news article could easily—as an impulse purchase—go to the iBook app to buy and download one the artist's publications. The whole process would take no more than a few seconds. The iPad's IPS screen (something that most small laptops still don't have) is likely to deliver very strong results, if the photographer's and publisher's workflow and colour management are good. I can't help thinking that this is a whole new thing, both for writers and photographers.
Title: iPad
Post by: Pytlowany on January 28, 2010, 07:16:01 pm
The features of this Archos tablet look more useful and complete than a Mac tablet. Archos 9" Tablet (http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=us&lang=en)  It also uses a normal OS.
Title: iPad
Post by: Panorama on January 28, 2010, 07:17:22 pm
This is basically a toy and there's no way this is a replacement for a netbook or something useful. A limit of 64GB (3g is $829), a horrendous form factor as a phone, zero ability to run real applications (and the 25,000 farting applications in the "app store" don't count) adds up to yet another so-what product from apple. Reality aside though, it's true that Apple/mac people will buy anything they're told to buy; as long as Jobs tells them it's "awesome" and the coolest thing ever these people will part company with their money for a grossly over priced product.

For $199, maybe, if you want an e-reader. Otherwise, a very sad joke... Completely unimpressive...

Apple's new motto will be "Remember the Newton, er, uh, iPad".      A popular Youtube video sums up this fiasco... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4)
Title: iPad
Post by: Moynihan on January 28, 2010, 09:11:42 pm
Interesting thread.

First, let me say, I do not own any Apple products. Not because i do not like Apple or whatever, i just do not own any, i guess because i never wanted to pay the "premium".

From what I have read, at the last CES in Vegas you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a tablet or slate computer. The Ipad is not in and of itself "revolutionary". What is important is that it is an Apple product. They seem to have a knack for ergonomics and design for the consumer market. What is sometimes referred to as "machine beauty" (http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Beauty-Elegance-Technology-Masterminds/dp/046504316X) .

In the original Star Trek series communicator inspired the flip phone design. If you want to see the range of uses for the ultra thin Ipad/slate/tablet hooked to the "cloud", just watch a few episodes of Star Trek Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. You see then all over the place.

I think the most intriguing use of the Ipad by a working photographer (which I am not) is as a portifolio. It could contain both still images and motion. Look at the quality of image presentation in Lenswork Extended.
I imagine that later incarnations and non-apple tablets coming out now will be of more varied practical use for working photographers.

But by looking at the ipad in that way, we miss its true "importance". It is not made for photographers, computer jockeys, etc. It is made for consumers. And, consumers on the south side of about 45 years old. Those consumers are the customers of some photographers (wedding market). Those customers are who are supplied with media by your customers (publishing, editorial, periodicals, advertising, etc.). The ipad is just a new apple i-product that is a big deal because of the existing base, market share, mystique quality etc. of Apple consumer electronics.  This could be the beginning of of a shift in how consumers in rich countries consume various media from print to video. That will effect everyone involved in production of media.
Title: iPad
Post by: Driftforge on January 28, 2010, 10:18:40 pm
For those asking for a "full" OS, what is it you are looking for?  Ever considered that a "full" OS may not actually be the best fit for this sort of device?  You can safely assume Apple has run OSX on it themselves and picked the better option...

10 hours is operating battery time.  Seems a goodly chunk.  And you can spread that over a month if you want.  


Applications will come.  They will be different to what we have on the PC, and different to what we have on the iPhone.  You just have to have a look at the apps Apple has put together for themselves to see this.  The OS is not the same as on the iPhone, not at this scale and resolution.  Size changes the way the interface works.  Different things work.

Wait and see what developers do with this.  It's a new platform, with new capabilities and limitations.  Some of those limitations will fade as the platform itself beds down over a couple of generations.  Some of those will remain to limit growth in cancerous directions.  

Here's the thing.  People who buy Apple expect to pay for not only the device, but the content.  That is what Apple is bringing to the market.  Sure, online news has never been able to be charged for previously.  But this is exactly what Apple brings; the promise of being able to charge.   This is why the device will succeed.  Because it will have content - both applications and media.
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 28, 2010, 11:42:45 pm
Quote from: Bahi
Both YouTube (the biggest Flash content site for web browsers) and Vimeo now offer HTML 5 video in beta, which doesn't require (or even support) Flash and will eventually obviate the need for Flash. I expected Flash to be a problem for the iPhone till Google announced that it was recoding all YouTube content to play in h.264 for the iPhone. Vimeo has just announced the same thing.

http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_con...4&Itemid=96 (http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320094&Itemid=96)

Wow so you can drop mega bucks and run beta software. The HTML 5 standards are WAY off in the future and no where near prime time. Yep that is certainly a richer browser experience. Or you could just run Flash which is used on millions of websites and has been around for a long time.

Quote
As a side note (for most readers), in the UK, the BBC iPlayer is a hugely popular source of online television content, carrying all recently broadcast programmes and also offers an h.264 stream for iPhones that will work fine for the iPad.

Of course in the USA Hulu is a major player supported by most of the major television networks, and it is all flash.

Quote
Clever use of CSS may reduce and eventually eliminate another category of Flash use: the simple animation of text and graphics (as opposed to full motion video).

http://www.gesteves.com/experiments/starwars.html (http://www.gesteves.com/experiments/starwars.html)

In the example above, you can even select the text and copy it as it scrolls. It should work fine on the iPad—it certainly works on the iPhone.

or the iPad could just run flash, no need to beta software or code, or the hope that at some point in the future CSS or HTML 5 may make the need for flash not a big deal. Remember the article on this site and this site in general is all about photography. How many photography sites are flash based? Since Adobe owns flash you can bet that flash support will continue to be expanded in things like Photoshop and Lightroom which of course owns the Photography market.

Quote
There's no lack of games that are good, cheap or both for the iPhone/iPod platform already. In fact, many or most of the most frequently downloaded items from the app store are games--some of the most popular are free or cost 99 cents and will run on the iPad unmodified. There'll be a period during which newcomers to the iPhone or iPod Touch are disappointed when they can't play online games but it will be short—there's better stuff out there and it's not expensive. Ask any young user of an iPod Touch or iPhone; where I live, I can see people every day on any bus or train people engrossed in their iPod and iPhone games—and it's both kids and adults.

Yep I know I play them on my iPod touch, What you are saying basically proves my point. The iPad is just an iPod touch with a bigger screen. Will all of these people who already own an iPod Touch or an iPhone run out and buy an iPad just for a bigger screen?


Quote
That is a huge opportunity for photographers—there's a real potential for sales of photography volumes at low cost but high unit volume. Someone looking at a photographer's web site or the credits on a news article could easily—as an impulse purchase—go to the iBook app to buy and download one the artist's publications.
unless of course the photographers website is flashed based which the overwhelming majority are with that number increasing everyday due to a whole host of reasons not to mention the webmodules in Lightroom that are flashed based. From my perspective photographers seem to use flash more on their websites than any other category.



Quote
The whole process would take no more than a few seconds. The iPad's IPS screen (something that most small laptops still don't have) is likely to deliver very strong results, if the photographer's and publisher's workflow and colour management are good. I can't help thinking that this is a whole new thing, both for writers and photographers.

Or Apple could just make it work with flash and it would not have to be a whole new thing, nor an Apple proprietary thing.
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 29, 2010, 02:21:34 am
i remember my last phone before my iphone...a nokia that had a5mpix zeiss camera, browser, email,mp3....some kind of navigation...it did all that and nothing well....actually it made every single task a pain....when the iphone was announced, i was very disappointed....and wasn't going to get one....until i played with it for one minute....and saw for the first time how i could open an email with a pdf attached and check that out and click on a link and look at a webgallery...and it all was like having a little desktop in front of me....i was sold....not by the power or great camera.....but by how easy it was to actually do what i need to do....

the iphone OS is by far the most stable OS i have ever seen...i don't have to do anything, don't have to worry about anything....

my mom at 70 (yes she still runs her business and enjoys doing so...) now takes only her iphone on trips....not a cellphone, camera and laptop...because it does what she needs it to do....with any of her previous cellphones, she could not figure out how to use the camera...and i am not even getting into email or browsing.....

this OS is finally how an OS should be....so a monkey or child sits down and knows how and what and where....which is the point of all this....it is not how can i make it faster and better and how can i do this and that...a good OS should not be seen or feared..it should be invisible....not: how do i use this? how do i do this?

that HP slate thing runs windows 7 with multitouch...wonderful...just look at the screen infront of you right now and try to do ANYTHING on your computer (mac or windows) with your fingers on the screen....it's not made for that! it is made for a tiny pointing device not meaty fingers......it's not a problem to make a screen a touchscreen....it's a problem to make a touchscreen interface usable....

everybody here is asking for raw conversion.....this is about controlling your entire house via the ipad....climate control, heat, garage door, TV, stereo, any kind of remote control...it will be there...most are already (via the iphone)....

car manufacturers are building apps to remotely start your car, lock, unlock it, see where the guy who just stole it is going and turning the engine off....this is all available right now....even as an aftermarket app for pretty much any car.....heat it up while still sipping you morning coffee...and reading the "paper"....and checking the weather and your email...all on the ipad.....

and all this is just the beginning....has anyone actually checked out the onone app for nikon/canon remote shooting? it is the first application for tethering i have ever used that actually works perfectly, every time, an idiot can use it and it is dirt cheap.....


who cares if it does not have flash....if i want to watch a tv show, i will buy it for 1 or 2$...so i don't have to deal with ads....flash is a resource hog on my mbp....and i have never missed it on my iphone....i would not be surprised to see flash at some point...but then again....millions of people with their iphones don't seem to miss it and the iphone is responsible for a huge chuck of all wireless data consumed.....

iwork really is the best productivity suite out there for most people....office can do a lot more....but just like imovie....not everybody wants to make a feature....and without the bloat and options you can get things done faster and easier....just like i would recommend iphoto over photoshop any day...and i know them both well....but i know that for 99% of all people iphoto will be a uch better experience..and they will actually USE it....and make books...or whatever....

of course i would want the power of a macpro, raided SSDs and a 100% RGB screen all in the ipad package....but it is just not possible.....so i am not sure how people expect so much from such a small package at a very fair price (it is a fair price...)....its like asking the latest p&s to perform like a DMF back...just not possible.....

i really hate that there is no front facing camera/ichat....and that is ATT's fault....
Title: iPad
Post by: Bahi on January 29, 2010, 04:12:03 am
Quote from: Wally
Or you could just run Flash which is used on millions of websites and has been around for a long time. (...) Of course in the USA Hulu is a major player supported by most of the major television networks, and it is all flash.

My guess is that we'll see a Hulu app on the platform soon, that all major online video providers who rely on Flash (including news organisations) will provide h.264 alternatives and that the absence of a Flash plug-in won't be seen as a problem for Apple in six months' time. Major content providers will be making their stuff look good on this device, either by avoiding Flash for the versions of their sites that this device loads or by providing apps. The widespread adoption of h.264 for video and standard AJAX/CSS solutions for simple interactive stuff, which may seem a long way off now, will be in place for key sites.

Photographers who are moving into video work won't have a problem getting their footage seen on the iPad.

Apple is definitely taking a risk—even the NYT home page in Jobs's demo showed the missing Flash plug-in symbol—but my guess is that its calculations are correct. (It wouldn't have been a bet worth placing 3 years ago, though.) The web is built on advertising and advertisers love sliding, whirling, blinking stuff that is currently completely dependent on Flash; if the iPad sells well, as I expect it will, to a demographic that advertisers find appealing (again, very likely) then the ad industry will lead the march to all-singing, all-dancing content that doen't require Flash and which just works on in modern browsers. Money talks.

I do agree, though, that this is going to pose a problem for photographers whose sites rely on Flash for their look and interactive content. Some will choose to move to CSS/AJAX solutions to get their sites onto these devices. Where there's a demand, there will be solutions and non-Flash sites already work quite well; I could certainly be wrong in believing that the solution won't be a Flash plug-in for the iPad and that the iPad will sell very well without it but only time will tell.

As for paying "megabucks", the Kindle DX (9.7") is $489 right now (29 Jan 2010) and the cheapest iPad (IPS screen, apps, iPod, video, games, great interface) is $499. No contest.
Title: iPad
Post by: NikosR on January 29, 2010, 05:02:31 am
Quote from: feppe
All attempts at web subscriptions for newspapers and magazines have resulted in failure, often a miserable one. Not too many people are willing to pay for content which is available for free elsewhere, and the few sources which have tried subscriptions have failed to differentiate their content enough from those. Even if News Corp closes up entirely, there will be others who won't - and even if they do, there will be numerous free sources of news financed by taxes, such as BBC.

And what makes you believe that even if what you're saying is true, it is not applicable also to other forms of content delivery i.e. e-magazines? I'm not sure I'm following your train of thought.

What I'm trying to say is that charging for news or magazine content cannot be the differentiator which will make or break the ipad or similar content delivery platforms.You can do that on the www now using any of a number of web browser based devices for delivery.
Title: iPad
Post by: gguida on January 29, 2010, 05:04:53 am
Much as the iPhone before it, the iPad is having a disappointing launch but, as Stephen Fry puts it, it's not about the bells and whistles, it's about the interface. The iPad is about two years late because of last (long) minute tweaks that anybody else than Steve Jobs would have found completely irrelevant. They even paid several hundred million dollars for their own chip design company so it could be a few percent faster. But, of course, the difference between instant and even the slightest delay is huge in any interface (shutter lag anyone?) so microseconds count.

The CES show was full of eBooks but I have a strong feeling that they will be stillborn because we want more in our books than just black and white text. Many other tablets were presented but their interface was either Windows or inexistent. The iPad, for all its apparent simplicity is a quantum leap, a paradigm change, as an information access device. If I was slightly surprised at not seeing an iChat camera on it, I suppose it was tested to death and not found practical for some reason.

My only real disappointment was to not have a content SDK made available immediately. This is a publishing platform, but not for web content, it is for eBooks on steroids, with DRM and an online shop so you can actually sell them for real money rather than hypothetical advertising revenue. That is where the device is relevant to us because that is where all of our images will be in ten years time. As for the SDK, I guess Apple will do as with the iTunes LP and show us some fantastic examples with their publishing partners first before making it available to everybody else. As with the App store, the first ones to jump in will be in an excellent position. Magazines reborn. I worship books and have several thousands in my library but just can't deny the attraction of having them all at hand, being able to search through them, link between them and external sources, and have them enriched with multimedia. I loved having CDs and kept buying them long after I started using iTunes but I haven't touched one for years. Besides, they is no room for bookcases in our small european houses anymore.

Now a few more thoughts. The iPad comes in a few different flavours but the most attractive is actually the cheapest one and one doesn't actually need tons of memory for a device like that. Now imagine next year, a $300 or even $200 iPad. You won't have just one, they will be littering your house. They'll be strewn about like discarded magazines, ready to be picked up and displaying your information, pulled from the cloud in that huge billion dollar server facility Apple just built. Star Trek TNG indeed. I can also see a good use for a home media server now. As with the iPhone although it is having a very slow start, the iPad is the perfect device interface. If you are building a big industrial machine, developing a nice physical interface is going to take tons of development time and money and you may make only a few hundred of them at the end. Now, you just need to plug in an iPad, write a simple App and you are running with the best of them for peanuts. Also, as a pilot, I'd sell a kidney for Jeppesen plates on an iPad.

So, Michael, when do we see the first iPad LLVJ?
Title: iPad
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on January 29, 2010, 07:31:21 am
I'm looking forward to cheaper and simpler versions. Here is what I have in mind as a wedding photographer. I give the client a ipad type thingy. On it using a DVD type interface they click on either a slideshow of all the photos, the video and a fusion presentation of the video and stills. I don't need anything as 'advanced' as an ipad though to do that, all I need is a glorified digital picture frame looking like an ipad. When it does happen it will kill the proof book idea though, far more personal a presentation than a webpage with a slideshow.
Title: iPad
Post by: fredjeang on January 29, 2010, 07:52:58 am
How this website for example will be display in order to view it properly with this media, as it has fixed dimensions? Re-programing html-css etc...that would work both in a normal computer and IPad? And how would be kept quality in image down-sized?
Title: iPad
Post by: Peter Mellis on January 29, 2010, 10:15:34 am
One of the large scale potential uses for a device of this type is as a platform for college level text books. A unit will have to be crafted for that application and delivered at a price that will make it attractive. The development and production costs of college texts have made them very expensive and there is a great deal of pressure to get the cost to students down. Electronic delivery, with a viable viewing/reading device would eliminate the manufacturing and distribution part of the publishers cost structure and significantly cut the cost to the student. The problem that remains to be resolved is the usual one as related to digital content; protecting the intellectual property rights of the publisher.
Title: iPad
Post by: Moynihan on January 29, 2010, 10:30:01 am
Quote from: PeterAM
One of the large scale potential uses for a device of this type is as a platform for college level text books. ...

Ah yes. Apple has a significant presence already, developed for the last 30 years, in the educational sector (at least in the U.S., don't know if elsewhere).
That was one of the first things i thought when i first saw the thing. Apple education presence is also in K-12. I would expect significant discounts for school purchase will appear.
The publishers in the ebook "alliance" for the device all have textbook divisions. The ebook format chosen by Apple is also not proprietary, which publishers really like.

Many students already have ipods. some have iphones. Now for school, an ipad? Talk about market development/brand loyality building?
Title: iPad
Post by: BJL on January 29, 2010, 10:54:47 am
Quote from: NikosR
Well, what about subscription or pay to view web sites then? Limiting the content available for free doesn't necessarily mean a shift away from the www.
They are trying that too, but with mixed success. My guess is that the plan for downloadable "newspaper Apps" will try to add value over websites, and so make subscription more acceptable, in a couple of ways:
- by downloading in advance (maybe over night, with updates in the background), the content can be more substantial and yet without delays each time you click to new page.
- reading can be done away from a network connection: some of us do not want to pay for a monthly 3G data plan just to be able to read the newspaper when out of WiFi range; we want to download our reading matter from the internet, and then roam.

The best evidence though is the clear enthusiasm of magazine and newspaper publishers like the New York Times for selling Kindle and App versions. The NYT  failed in its previous attempt at selling a web service, Times Select.
Title: iPad
Post by: Dansk on January 29, 2010, 11:07:39 am

 Apparently the ipad was launched last year....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L68aKVAzwQ4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L68aKVAzwQ4)


Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 29, 2010, 11:22:11 am
After reading many articles with regard to iPad both pro and con, and reading many threads on various websites such as this one it seems there are two main camps.

The first camp (which I am in) thinks that the lack of flash support, a camera, and a host of other issues will relegate the current iPad to the same fate as every other tablet computer, which means it will be a niche player in a niche market.

The second camp thinks that issues like lack of flash support are not a big deal because at some point in the future there will be new HTML/CSS standards that will make flash no longer needed. Most in this camp also think that publishers will come out with tons of content for use on the iPad which will make it much more popular.

What we have here then is the classic "What Came First the Chicken or the Egg" scenario. I am sure Apple will sell a few million at launch. There are enough Apple Fan Boys who will camp out in front of an Apple Store and will quickly snap them up. Once they get one who else will? In order to drive more sales there will need to be a bunch of content. In order for there to be a bunch of content there needs to be a bunch of iPads out there.

This is very different from the iPhone launch because people carry cell phones anyway, and for the last decade people want to get a new phone every year or so anyway. Many people also carried an MP3 player most of which were iPods. So if you are getting a new phone why not get one that can play MP3s and Games and allow you to go online. So many people viewed the iPhone as an upgrade from their current cell phone and/or MP3 player. And went from carrying 2 devices down to one that was small and fits in your pocket with the added ability to have internet.

The iPad is different because most people do not allready carry a tablet. So you are asking people to carry something new in addition to their cell phone. You are also asking the millions of iPhone and iPod Touch users to buy another product and carry it with them. Many of the current iPhone users dropped big money on the first iPhone and then paid big money again for a new one with better features and more power. Many of these folks will not do that again and will wait for the iPad 2, after all they can already run everything in the App Store.

All of this means a  limited user base, which is waiting for content, and content creators waiting for a user base to sell to. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. It is the Chicken and the Egg
Title: iPad
Post by: barryfitzgerald on January 29, 2010, 11:23:55 am
Lol!

I admire Apple in some ways, I like their OS, but it has to be said..more often than not it's a case of style over substance. Don't get me wrong, they've done well with i pods (even if they are not great sound quality wise), they took the market for themselves. I don't see this as appealing as some previous products. As for their computers, really, we're just talking about the OS, because the unit is a PC inside..with a nice case and Apple logo on it. But then as a system builder I would say that. So in closing, I don't see this one really being a huge hit..it's too limited. I see Adobe are hammering it for lack of flash support.

http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/art...flash-omission/ (http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/1/29/adobe-condemns-apple-ipads-flash-omission/)

Oh and I bet you have to send it back to Apple to change the battery, as per i pod/i phone   , here is a nice video of all the hassle involved for an i phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr6HWZa0dGM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr6HWZa0dGM)

I dislike this type of lock in from any company. Cmon this is just poor basic design.
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 29, 2010, 11:36:12 am
Quote from: BJL
They are trying that too, but with mixed success. My guess is that the plan for downloadable "newspaper Apps" will try to add value over websites, and so make subscription more acceptable, in a couple of ways:
- by downloading in advance (maybe over night, with updates in the background), the content can be more substantial and yet without delays each time you click to new page.
- reading can be done away from a network connection: some of us do not want to pay for a monthly 3G data plan just to be able to read the newspaper when out of WiFi range; we want to download our reading matter from the internet, and then roam.

The best evidence though is the clear enthusiasm of magazine and newspaper publishers like the New York Times for selling Kindle and App versions. The NYT  failed in its previous attempt at selling a web service, Times Select.

This then is a clear advantage for the Kindle over the iPad. With the Kindle you have free 3G to download content you don't need to be tethered to a computer. You can do that anywhere in the world that has 3G service. The interface to do so is very slick and very easy to use right out of the box. You just turn it on and away you go. If you see a book or newspaper that you want you just download it, no need to pay for 3G.

Then again for newspapers you can buy them for a quarter or 50 cents and read them on paper if you really wanted to. Also each morning when you head out the door the paper could be waiting for you on your front step. What is killing the Newspaper Business is not the fact that people do not want paper, it is that there are many outlets online that they can get their news from for free. As long as I can go to news sites for free, or flip on one of many news channels on TV I will never buy a newspaper in electronic form. If I am going to read the news electronically anyway why would I pay for it? That is the major issue that newspapers face.

I used to subscribe to a bunch of photography magazines as well. I let just about all of them run out. Why pay for Shutterbug when I can come to websites such as this one for free?

The biggest issues facing content providers is not that people want electronic over paper, it is that they want free over paid. The iPad does nothing to change that fact
Title: iPad
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on January 29, 2010, 12:30:17 pm
Quote from: barryfitzgerald
Oh and I bet you have to send it back to Apple to change the battery, as per i pod/i phone   , here is a nice video of all the hassle involved for an i phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr6HWZa0dGM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr6HWZa0dGM)

I dislike this type of lock in from any company. Cmon this is just poor basic design.
RFOL!  This video looks like a guarantee for sales of new I-Phones!  I just got my daughter a Droid phone from Verizon.  It took all of five seconds to put the battery in the phone (probably will take about the same time to remove it when it needs to be replaced).

With respect to the I-Pad; I commute via subway to DC (20 minutes each way) daily.  I have the original Kindle and for the type of reading I do, it's great.  I've grown accustomed to the slow page turn and now hit the turn bar when I'm about three lines from the bottom.  I don't find that bothersome.  I read the newspapers at breakfast in their original newsprint format.  I guess I'm old fashioned that way so my simple conclusion is that the $500 is better spent on photography supplies.
Title: iPad
Post by: pschefz on January 29, 2010, 12:36:31 pm
here (http://gizmodo.com/5459308/slate-showdown-ipad-vs-hp-slate-vs-joojoo-vs-the-android-tablets) is a simple comparison between upcoming pads/tablets/....lack of flash and storage (64gb max) across the board....

and even the dell will run android....
Title: iPad
Post by: BJL on January 29, 2010, 01:32:54 pm
Firstly, I agree that adding Flash support would be useful ... unless Apple and others succeed in breaking Adobe's stranglehold on that part of the web experience, through HTML5 and such. I hope they do succeed in cutting Flash down to size: I have had repeated frustrations when something breaks because Flash is not installed at all on the host computer where I am giving a presentation, or a newer version is needed, or Flash does not work right with my preferred browser/OS combination. Also, I like the Kindle and Kindle DX) for what they do very well: reading books, magazines and such in which the main content is the written word, not illustrations. But ...

Quote from: Wally
This then is a clear advantage for the Kindle over the iPad.
Only until the electronic newspaper or magazine or book includes color images and graphics, or embedded video.

Apparently, the Kindle DX ($489 with 3G connection, monochrome, proprietary book format, no video at all, so definitely no Flash) was tested in some US colleges for using electronic textbooks in class, and did poorly because of things like inadequate ability to add "marginal notes" and the fact that many modern textbooks rely heavily on color graphics. So the iPad could improve on Kindle with its full size (but virtual) keyboard. But it might be that the real breakthrough for highly portable electronic textbooks will involve adding a good hand-writing input system too. I have heard that screens which handle pen input and touch input and color output and are big enough for a good reading experience are, for now, too expensive for the $500 device price range.

P. S. Most of us can easily dock our devices to charge (and download newspapers or such) each night, so ten hours of continuous usage and several weeks of standby should be plenty.
Title: iPad
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on January 29, 2010, 03:29:25 pm
Quote from: BJL
P. S. Most of us can easily dock our devices to charge (and download newspapers or such) each night, so ten hours of continuous usage and several weeks of standby should be plenty.
Not if you are on a long transcontinental flight.  I had my Kindle on an overseas trip of 10 days and it was only down to 1/2 charge by the day I was scheduled to leave.  Charged it just to make sure.  If anything this is a big disadvantage of the I=Pad.
Title: iPad
Post by: DiaAzul on January 29, 2010, 07:53:11 pm
Quote from: BJL
Firstly, I agree that adding Flash support would be useful ...

Apple will never allow flash or any other application environment to run on the iPhone/iPad which allows users to download applications around the Apple App store. Allowing flash, or any JVM type container would weaken Apples grip on their prime revenue steam, even if it is in the customers' best interest.

Apple has one goal and one goal only and that is to make money.
Title: iPad
Post by: Bahi on January 29, 2010, 10:08:51 pm
Quote from: DiaAzul
Apple will never allow flash or any other application environment to run on the iPhone/iPad which allows users to download applications around the Apple App store. Allowing flash, or any JVM type container would weaken Apples grip on their prime revenue steam, even if it is in the customers' best interest.
The app store for the iPhone and the iTunes store run a little over break-even for Apple, according to Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. If consumers had access to the same functionality through some other means and still bought the devices regardless, you'd think Apple would be fine with that. Apple cares about hardware sales and customer satisfaction with the device. My guess is that Apple has made a judgement about the dissatisfaction that will undoubtedly result from the absence of Flash on the iPad and decided that it's less than the dissatisfaction that would result from performance, stability and battery life issues that users would experience if Flash were present.

Apple's problem with Flash is long-standing and has to do with years of relatively poor Flash plug-in performance and stability on OS X compared with Windows, both before and after Apple moved to Intel CPUs. It's not that it's downright terrible or completely unusable—far from it. But as anyone with a MacBook will know, if you watch Flash content on a Mac, the computer's fans come on quickly, CPU use rockets and battery life suffers (compared with watching the exact same content, in the exact same resolution, in h.264 format using the QuickTime plugin rather than the Flash plugin). On a mobile device like the iPad, for which heat and battery life are critical, that sort of behaviour is a deal-breaker.

I haven't tried recently but a few years back, I found Flash performance on a GNU/Linux Gentoo distro pretty bad as well, while quick and slick on Windows using the same hardware. There are technical issues here potentially affecting performance Flash on OS X (Apple's API limitations, the fact that its browser is a 64-bit app and Flash code remains 32-bit and more) but today's round of articles on the web seem to suggest that Adobe suddenly cares about this issue in a way that it has never seemed to previously. (I'm speaking as an end user, not from knowing anyone at Adobe. That's just how it felt.) This seems like good news—Flash on the Mac has worked appeared to work relatively badly for as long as I can remember, one update after the next, despite the promises, and if the performance and particularly the stability problems suddenly go away, who knows what might happen?

I've used ClicktoFlash (http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash/) since its release—it allows you to automatically load the h.264 versions of all content on YouTube, for example, and the resulting absence of fan noise (and improved battery life) when browsing is very welcome.

Then there's stability. Flash was also named, somewhat obliquely, the single biggest source of all Mac OS X application crashes at the last Apple developer conference, based on the crash reports that Mac users submit to Apple. See Gruber's article here (http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash). My own experience is exactly in line with that (with some third-party widgets collectively coming in a close second).

Some people (including Gruber) suggest that keeping Flash off the Mac has become a control issue for Apple; that's certainly possible but my guess is that if the plug-in had shown great performance and stability for the last few years on OS X, it would have been on the iPad. Anyway, if Apple and Adobe can sort out their differences, all the better.
Title: iPad
Post by: John Camp on January 29, 2010, 11:27:59 pm
If you want a laptop or a netbook, buy one, because an iPad isn't one. They are different machines for different purposes. I think the iPad is a game-changer because I think it's beginning to reflect a new, growing reality on the net, and that is, content actually does count. The Wall Street Journal already requires a subscription, and the New York Times is about to, and I expect other major media forms will begin requiring the same -- why should they give the content free to Google, and watch Google collect all the money for advertising? So, when the Times reports on a critical issue, you can either read the Times' version, or, a day later, read the version provided on Google, taken from the East Jesus Gazette-Advertiser. Lots of net people think all they need to know is to be found in blogs; but most of what is found in blogs is bullshit. Of course, if that's what you need... Every time I go to Europe, I would plan to pack along perhaps ten novels, a couple of dozen magazines, plus reference books travel guides, art history works etc. I believe they will quickly become available.

Vs. iPod and iPhone. Ever try to take four or five art reference books to Europe for your museum tour? Ever try to find an English-language version of a speciality art book in Munich? Ever try to read a novel on an iPod? Art's my thing, but the same would be true of anyone needing reference books, either for work or for pleasure -- car enthusiasts, pilots, historians, archaeologists...the possibilities are the same as the possibilities in your library.

Vs. netbook. Every try to read a novel on-line or with a laptop?

Vs. Kindle: Ever try to figure out the charm of a fauve painting in black and white?

One thing I wish they'd done is provided slots for flash memory - CF cards. 64 gigs may not be enough for everything I plan to do with it. It'd be nice to be able to jump up to another 64gigs whenever you needed it.

I travel a lot with a laptop. If my laptop gave me 10 hours of life, I'd be delighted -- but I've never had any problem charging it. Along with eating a couple of meals, taking a couple of leaks, etc., an iPad would cover a flight from London to Sydney, or Newark to Baghdad...and I expect you'll quickly be able to buy those little backup dev ices like they have for the iPod, batteries that will give you a boost for those times you can't get to an outlet...not that I've ever needed one.

So: I think it's a game-changer, although I'm also keeping an eye out for rumored Microsoft slate, which some say may actually fold like a book...

JC
Title: iPad
Post by: Jeff Phillips on January 30, 2010, 09:25:41 am
I don't think the iPad will replace any laptops.  Apple believes you will buy one in addition to the laptop you already have.  The same applies to Kindle.  I love my kindle and would keep it if I get an iPad.  Same applies to my iPod.  The iPad is designed to complement these devices, not replace them.  
   I was also intrigued with the Brushes demo during the unveiling.  I did not know Brushes could handle layers.  I would snap up an iPad if there were apps from Phase One, Lightroom or Photoshop.  Would they replace those versions on my laptop or desktop? No.  But they would be useful in the field for quick adjustments or as digital ground glass or as enhanced digital ground glass.  Checking and changing white balance.  Quick curves adjustments.  Quick sharpening actions.  The list goes on.  I would love to use the iPad in this fashion.  Since there is already a photoshop app for the iPhone it is obvious someone (more likely a group) over there has experience with the sdk.  Fingers crossed for Adobe and Phase One to join the party...
Title: iPad
Post by: Wally on January 30, 2010, 12:10:32 pm
Quote from: DiaAzul
Apple will never allow flash or any other application environment to run on the iPhone/iPad which allows users to download applications around the Apple App store. Allowing flash, or any JVM type container would weaken Apples grip on their prime revenue steam, even if it is in the customers' best interest.

Apple has one goal and one goal only and that is to make money.


Yep you got it, I also think that both Apple and Adobe are sending shots across each others bow. I have thought for a while now that in 5 years time Adobe will no longer make products for Apple. We are already starting to see a lag with some Adobe products for the Mac Platform compared with Windows.

It has been rather fun and amusing to watch the Apple fan boys try and explain away the lack of flash support as a good thing on a device that's primary objective is to watch and read content in various forms. I also do not believe for a second that Apple does not make money from the App Store or iTunes. If so why offer it at all?

I read an interesting article on another site that speculated the real reason that Apple does not want flash on the iPhone/iPad and that is because the 3G networks could not handle the load of the millions of people who would stream HD Porn in flash.The iPad with flash support would become the perfect platform for streaming porn videos and with ATT's network not even able to keep with iPhone usage streaming unlimited porn videos in HD with the unlimited data plan that they have to sell would crash the entire network.
Title: iPad
Post by: john beardsworth on January 30, 2010, 12:27:57 pm
Quote from: Wally
....I read an interesting article on another site that speculated the real reason that Apple does not want flash on the iPhone/iPad and that is because the 3G networks could not handle the load of the millions of people who would stream HD Porn in flash...
Not sure about that. At 1.5 pounds it's a bit heavy to hold comfortably in one hand.
Title: iPad
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on January 30, 2010, 12:34:49 pm
Quote from: johnbeardy
Not sure about that. At 1.5 pounds it's a bit heavy to hold comfortably in one hand.

 But that's the real reason why they have the stand option...
Title: iPad
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on January 30, 2010, 12:57:40 pm
Quote from: John Camp
I travel a lot with a laptop. If my laptop gave me 10 hours of life, I'd be delighted -- but I've never had any problem charging it. Along with eating a couple of meals, taking a couple of leaks, etc., an iPad would cover a flight from London to Sydney, or Newark to Baghdad...and I expect you'll quickly be able to buy those little backup dev ices like they have for the iPod, batteries that will give you a boost for those times you can't get to an outlet...not that I've ever needed one.


JC
John,

I think you would be looking at a 13 hour flight here.  13-10=3, so your screen goes blank just when you pass Cyprus!
Title: iPad
Post by: gguida on January 30, 2010, 01:21:37 pm
A few interesting things doing the rounds on the internet. Apple knows it's taking a challenge but makes sure you note that it is in the best position ever to do so: 50B$ company, 75M iPhone OS users, 150,000 Apps and tens of thousands of dedicated developers and an extremely successful multimedia shop which is being reproduced to sell books. And enough excitement generated to guarantee the first few million sales sight unseen. Also, they are extremely vertically integrated and have huge long term contracts to guarantee the supply and price of the key components. As Apple warned us last year, they have most probably reduced their margin significantly to make sure nobody would undercut them on price. If a ten inch tablet is the solution, nobody will beat Apple in the foreseeable future.

A ten inch tablet held vertically (portrait) is not an accident. It is what our reading material has evolved into over hundred of years. Held with slightly bent arms, it is the size of image we expect from our computer screens and TVs. It is natural and comfortable. Apple being Apple, they have spent years refining the smallest touch gesture to make sure it was simple and intuitive. They started from scratch and kept nothing whatsoever from the desktop/mouse paradigm.

While they didn't dare say it this time, the iPad might really be the computer "for the rest of us". Not a mini laptop but something new that will be more than enough for many people who couldn't really use a computer until now.

Seeing the iPad, I wonder if our generation has used the most complicated computers ever and that they will now become simpler and simpler to use with their increasing internal complexity well hidden.

While there are a few obvious omissions in the first generation tablet, I am most disappointed by the lack of a powerful, interactive, multimedia publishing framework. So far, there is the simplistic ePub and some magazine and newspaper publishers have been left to program their own reader App but that could change completely with a formal, standard framework. What about an encapsulating engine based on HTML5 which would secure the content and add DRM? Cartoons and magazines would come running and many successful blogs could publish lucratively that way. About the competition with free information, Apple (and others) proved that people were ready to pay a reasonable amount for quality material that would be free of the disturbance of unrelated advertising. I can think of a number of magazines I would love receiving on my iPad, enhanced, enriched and mostly free of advertising (I stopped reading Diver magazine when their ratio of editorial to advertising dropped below 20%). They can cost less than one dollar each and still be profitable. No distribution costs and no waste.

I wonder how long it will be before we see such an application/framework. My guess is 50 days.
Title: iPad
Post by: Stefan.Steib on January 31, 2010, 02:50:05 pm
@gguida

I think you hit the nail - the iPad is as much a computer as many people need, with enough apps probably most.
As a Photographer you need to step aside and take a look what you would do if you were a private computer user and
frankly it would cover 90 % of what I do on computers.
Now what does it mean for me professionally ?
it´s about a shrinking and also a growing market.
The shrinking market is the print and large format, high quality market.
Worldwide last year most print media have lost up to 60 % of their ads.The numbers of printed matter seem to be stable but this is also to be asked after,
a lot of these magazines go to trains , planes and other places where people get them for free.
Now the iPad will speed up this tendency and even if Apple would fail there are many others in the wings who would also murder the king.
Now we also have a growing market, mixed media content, fast - no  INSTANT access to every news and pictures worldwide, 4G wil add even better quality
and permanent flow of new images and videos, maybe not so much text as this has to be written, but images taken the right time the right place will be worth more
and may market faster than ever before ( I see a dwindling business for the  AP´s and Reuters of this world soon !) directly shot to the online publishing software of giants
like Time and similar. You will need to connect to the internet in good quality to keep up with competition permanently and your pictures will need to be as web compatible
as possible,means sRGB, a max resolution of maybe 2000x3000 pixels and good compression means JPG/JPG2000 or PNG, some 3d stuff coming up with maybe Photosynth
or stereoscopic 3D (I think this would work on the iPad too!).
Expect a paradigm shift, if Apple would not have done it someone else would do it sooner or later.

The King is dead - long live the new King and again we need to learn how we find our place in this new and exciting world. This is why I love my job.

Greetings from Munich
Stefan
Title: iPad
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on February 01, 2010, 12:23:21 pm
There is an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal (http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108723/e-book-pricing-put-into-turmoil?sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=) today about pricing of e-books.  Apparently I-Pad books will cost more than their Kindle counterparts and one publisher is balking at producing Kindle editions.  Not terribly consumer friendly on the part of Apple.
Title: iPad
Post by: John Camp on February 01, 2010, 01:16:51 pm
Quote from: Alan Goldhammer
There is an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal (http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108723/e-book-pricing-put-into-turmoil?sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=) today about pricing of e-books.  Apparently I-Pad books will cost more than their Kindle counterparts and one publisher is balking at producing Kindle editions.  Not terribly consumer friendly on the part of Apple.

Doesn't have anything to do with consumer friendly. The special price on Kindle books applies only to best-sellers -- Amazon sells best-sellers for $9.99. The average hard-cover best-seller retails for about $27.95, of which the publisher gets ~$14, with the rest going to stores and distributors. That means that Amazon is taking a loss of around $4 per best-seller. They are (or were -- it's changing right now) willing to do that because they are trying to establish a monopoly position in electronic books; I talked to a somewhat frightened editor who said that Amazon is already at around 10% of sales, and growing. The problem here is that if Amazon does establish a monopoly position in electronic books, it will begin dictating prices to the publishers, rather than having the publishers set their own prices in a free-market style. That's why some publishers are balking at producing Kindle editions, even though they currently get their full share of the price -- they know that Amazon's position is not sustainable long-term, and is only being done now to seize market share. If Amazon succeeds, prices of electronic best-sellers will rise top something just under the cost of a paper version sold in book stores. If there ARE any bookstores. If Apple and Google succeed with their bookstore models, publishers will actually get less than they get from Amazon, at least for a while, but they will control their own pricing, which is crucial to them.

JC
Title: iPad
Post by: jjj on February 05, 2010, 08:42:45 am
Quote from: Wally
I read an interesting article on another site that speculated the real reason that Apple does not want flash on the iPhone/iPad and that is because the 3G networks could not handle the load of the millions of people who would stream HD Porn in flash.The iPad with flash support would become the perfect platform for streaming porn videos and with ATT's network not even able to keep with iPhone usage streaming unlimited porn videos in HD with the unlimited data plan that they have to sell would crash the entire network.
That would be a break with the old paradigm of porn being at the forefront and driver of new distribution methods.
Apple do also seem to be a prudish company, judging by some of the silly app store rejections, so there is possible truth is this as well as the server strain. But is Flash the main method of porn distribution online?
I'd also heard that even the 'recession proof' porn industry is struggling in the same ways paid for newspapers are, they also cannot compete with free.