Stało się, Apple obwieści światu swój nowy produkt – iPad. Tablet, lekki – 680 gramów, 10 godzin pracy na ładowanie, ekran 9,7 cala z rozdziałką 1024×768, multitouch. Nieźle. Ceny w dolarach całkiem przystępne, jak na produkt Apple.
Z pewnością nie kupię sobie kolejnego iPoda touch, ale właśnie iPada, bo dla mnie jest to taki iPod na sterydach, pasujący dokładnie do tego, do czego używam mojego toucha. Do tego świetny firmowa okładka, która służy także za podpórkę do ustawiania w różnych konfiguracjach.
Niestety, zamknięty produkt: tylko App Store i iTunes. Brak wielozadaniowości – to największe rozczarowanie. Spora dopłata za 3G, więc pewnie będzie mi szkoda kasy.
Z dobrego tekstu wypunktowane wady iPada:
- It’s a closed platform. As with the iPhone, development for the iPad means reliance on Apple’s tools, on the use of proprietary Apple hardware and software just to build an app. Now, those could be worthy sacrifices for a great product. But it also means that Apple alone distributes applications, and decides which applications developers will be allowed to create – something that has never been true on a computing OS. Since the unveiling of the iPhone SDK, Apple apologists argued that somehow this was a decision made by phone carriers, that surely their beloved Apple was not to blame. Yet Apple has chosen that path for a device that, while it lacks a keyboard, otherwise looks for all the world like a computer – like something that could have been a Mac, with all the power and freedom of a Mac, instead of an iPhone.
- It has no standard ports. Like the iPhone, the iPad has only a proprietary dock connector, ensuring Apple has control over the hardware made for the device. You can throw away decades of the lessons of the value of standard connectors, of the freedom to connect a computer as – to use a phrase Apple popularized – a digital hub.
There’s not even HDMI to connect to a display.Correction: video out will be possible, albeit with a proprietary adapter. And *access* to that video port from software has been a huge problem on the iPhone.- It’s tied to iTunes. As with the iPhone, you can’t use the iPad’s drive as a drive. You can’t connect it to a computer and put on it what you like. You’re limited to using third-party apps as conduits or servers – and even then, you’re limited; critical files for media and reading are controlled by Apple’s market-dominating iTunes app. It’s a storage device you own, but that someone else controls. Maybe that’s acceptable for game consoles, but, again, the iPad has the appearance of a computer. (Except, of course, it’s actually not.)
- Apple alone controls the distribution of media. Apple already has a dangerously dominant position in the consumption of music and mobile software, and their iTunes-device link ensures that content goes through their store, their conduit, and ultimately their control. This means that developers are limited in what they can create for the device when it comes to media – a streaming Last.fm app is okay, but an independent music store (like Amazon MP3 on Android) is not. Now, you can add to that Apple dominating book distribution. At a time when we have an opportunity to promote independent e-book publishing, the iPad is accompanied by launch deals from major traditional publishers. What does that mean for independent writers and content?
- It’s not an open computer. It’s not a Mac. The bottom line: you can’t do the things that an open computing experience allows. You can’t connect the hardware you want, develop or run the software you want, or have the open-ended experience computers have provided. That’s not to say a tablet or slate or pad or whatever you want to call it needs to be exactly like other computers. On the contrary: if you believe in the computing experience, you believe it should work in new and creative form factors. (There was a time when the clamshell laptop was a new idea, remember, a time when computers were giant bricks you plugged into a TV.)
Video na stronie Apple jest jednak dość przekonywujące.
Bardzo ciekawe spojrzenie na drugą stronę tego produktu:
Apple’s not actually selling a computer. Or a flash drive or multitouch. They needed to make those things for their product, but that’s not what the product is. The product is, simply put, a magical screen that can do anything you ever want it to, no matter what that is.
Here you go. It’s five hundred dollars. If you pay me that, I will give you this magical thing that can do anything. You don’t have to read a manual. It will do anything, and it will do it right now, out of the box.
Other companies are selling computers. Apple’s selling magic. Which one would you rather have?