Apple announces iPad

[Fau Teixeira]

i'm very underwhelmed with it .. things i have a problem with:

no usb
no os X
no multitasking

[BoSoxGrl]

Yeah no USB is another turn off.

[Brian Fein]

Does it have a SD card reader?

[Dave Gray]

No SD Reader.

It has no USB, but does support it.  You can get (or it comes with) a USB dongle that plugs into the charger port.

[Brian Fein]

I saw that it has 3G, but is that just for data?  Does this thing make phone calls?

[SportsChick]

it's just for data and it's an extra charge

[Brian Fein]

This thing seems like a big LCD touchscreen that can go online.  The more I hear that it DOESN'T have, the more unimpressed I am.  For a device like this, how do you leave out external memory interfaces (USB, SD, etc)? 

Its like a digital picture frame with internal memory and web browsing capabilities.

[Dave Gray]

I'm actually fully on board with the device not having USB or SD cards.  It's supposed to be a simpler, streamlined solution that has everything right there.  Apple isn't the kind of company that has users swapping out SD cards.

I'm mostly concerned about the lack of multi-tasking, though I wonder if that will eventually show up.  If it offers a lot in terms of streaming content, I think that will be good.  Also, the kinds of games that they are showing on it don't work for me.  Racing games are cool, but who the hell wants to play a racing game on a touch pad.  ...they should focus on games that work well with that interface -- Peggle, point and click adventures, cards, etc.  The lack of a camera is kind of surprising, because it seems like having video conferencing on it might be nice.

I think I would enjoy it as a media device, but not enough to go get one right away (or maybe at all).

[fyo]

I'm mostly concerned about the lack of multi-tasking, though I wonder if that will eventually show up. 

The lack of multitasking is not as big a deal as you might think. It all depends on how it's done, of course. I have a Palm Tungsten T3 which doesn't do multi-tasking either (it's a PDA, though, not a tablet). However, switching applications is INSTANT and the applications you switch out of remember their state. Overall result is that only a hard core user would even KNOW it didn't do multi-tasking and probably wouldn't care (I didn't/don't). Compared to a newer Windows powered PDA (with more memory and a faster processor), it's a lot snappier. There was one thing the Tungsten could do "in the background" (apparently an ugly hack, but it worked seamlessly): play music.

It does seem like an archaic restriction, although it really does remain to be seen if it matters.

[Dave Gray]

I have an iPhone that doesn't multitask.  It isn't a dealbreaker, but the apps are generally pretty small.  When I'm playing Peggle (one of the more sizeable apps I have), the thing has to re-load each time, like if I want to switch over and advance an MP3 track.  That's irritating, in that case, and it comes up a lot.  Also, certain apps require you to start from the opening page, and don't allow you to go back and forth quickly.

I see your point, and if it's seamless, I don't care if it's TRUE multitasking or not, but I fear that the apps will grow to the speed of the tablet and become cumbersome to swap between.

[fyo]

I see your point, and if it's seamless, I don't care if it's TRUE multitasking or not, but I fear that the apps will grow to the speed of the tablet and become cumbersome to swap between.

The issue here is memory. Since only one application can be running at once, processor speeds don't really matter and there's no hard drive, leaving only memory as the issue.

Now, the T3 kept EVERYTHING in RAM. Permanently. Ahh, you say, but RAM needs constant refreshing and that'll drain power, even when the device is "off". Yes, that's true, and the T3 did drain slowly... very slowly. And, yes, if you really nuked the battery (it would try to prevent you from doing so, e.g. by not wanting to turn on when really low on power), you could lose everything you had on it.

The upside was true instant swapping between apps -- and for a device like that, it was certainly worth it.

With the iPad, they've gone with a solid dose of flash memory. Compared to RAM, that's slow and what you're experiencing with your iPhone is the device swapping between RAM and flash. The iPhone 3G has 128MB of RAM (the -S has double that), but Apple have yet to say how much the iPad will feature.

Apple have also not disclosed how fast the flash they're using is, which is what will determine how long it takes to switch between apps. Flash drives are available with sequential write speeds approaching 100MB/s. If we assume an app uses several hundred megabytes, then it's going to take several seconds to completely swap that app out of memory. Several seconds is a long time, but I would assume that they start swapping the new app into RAM as soon as "enough" memory is available and then swap the rest out once the new app is switched to. It's a bit tricky, but absolutely doable, and would have a significant effect on swap times.

If Apple were smart, they could easily make their music player "special" and keep it in RAM constantly. That would avoid having to swap whatever big app someone is using out of RAM and into flash (and the music player from flash into RAM, but since a music player is small, that would be quick).

[fyo]

Oh boy, I just read that the iPad can't do flash or anything that requires a plugin. I hate flash, but at the same time, limitations like that will seriously reduce its usefulness to me -- and presumably a lot of other people.

Not sure if this is related to the multi-tasking issue....

One thing... if the iPad were to support HTML5 (like Safari does on OSX)... that could really push websites to stop developing Flash -- or at least provide an alternative.

[Buddhagirl]

Oh boy, I just read that the iPad can't do flash or anything that requires a plugin. I hate flash, but at the same time, limitations like that will seriously reduce its usefulness to me -- and presumably a lot of other people.

Not sure if this is related to the multi-tasking issue....

One thing... if the iPad were to support HTML5 (like Safari does on OSX)... that could really push websites to stop developing Flash -- or at least provide an alternative.

I think they're going to have to start providing an alternative. At my office, we're already working on different versions for handhelds anyway. We're also far more conscious of what we use in development.  I'm ok with it not reading Flash...I've never been a big fan and generally find that it's pointless.

[Brian Fein]

I would be really surprised if Flash went away.  95% of web users view their web sites on a computer which can handle Flash just fine.  It would be easier for Apple to integrate Flash plugins with this device (which seems more and more limited the more I look at it).

[fyo]

It would be easier for Apple to integrate Flash plugins with this device (which seems more and more limited the more I look at it).

Yes, it would, but there Apple have said that something like 80-90% of all their support calls regarding Macs "crashing" are due to Flash. I.e. they certainly have an incentive to come up with a better alternative.

Many aspects of flash are actually quite "open" and it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for someone like Apple to reimplement flash in HTML5 (essentially as a wrapper). The four main components of flash are: The scripting engine (almost identical to javascript), the vector graphics rendering (the original core component), the media codecs, and the networking protocols. #1 and #2 have already been done to a large extent and #3 is clearly doable. Adobe have recently opened up their flash protocols, to a degree, and documented the standards, making #4 a much more reasonable proposition.