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richat: I can't either. I'm not usually one for crude humor, but many many of the feminine hygiene product cracks I have seen have had me snarfing coffee (such as "So will iffy Wifi coverage be called iSpotting?"). And then there's the "no, not the iPOD, hand me my IPAD" thing. I'm not even sure what Mac products are all i-anything, anyway, and this just seems to be perpetuating it awkwardly.
As I'm typing to you on one of these (that I got for a little over a grand) it's hard for me to get excited about the iPad. Or to even see it as groundbreaking in any way whatsoever.
3.5 lbs, multi-touch and stylus, portrait view, and a real processor = Happy me. It's not a slate but keeps me able to have perspective on when slates will actually be worth buying.
Yeah, I'm a mac user and an iphone user and this doesn't really open any doors for me. For the price of the high end one you could get a macbook that will out perform the pad in most if not all respects (the macbook is heavier and lacks the wow factor, but it play DVDs and connect to other hardware). The "apple approved" applications only thing is ok for a phone, but for a computer it's just lame.
I have to say it didn't really tickle my Want bone.
For $500, I could get a laptop with a 17" screen and a 160GB hard drive - and I could run any damned program on it that I want. And - here's a revolutionary advance for you - it would let me do more than one thing at the same time.
The "apple approved" applications only thing is ok for a phone, but for a computer it's just lame.
I think the point is that it's not a computer and it's not supposed to compete with computers. Not even Apple can build a tablet that is as good as a real computer. This thing looks a lot more like an e-reader killer: the cheapest version is basically the same price as a Kindle DX, but it has a color screen and can play music and video, and run tons of apps to boot. As an entertainment device, it should be a lot more appealing than a netbook, as it's supposedly not as sluggish and awkward as your typical netbook is. No multitasking = fail, though.
I said this in the Mefi thread but I hate the way that Apple products are so tied to your desktop/laptop. You still have to plug this thing into your computer and sync it with iTunes as if it where 1998 and you were syncing a Palm. The thing should be a first class device not an accessory to your desktop.
On further thought: I really want to like this, but it has so many damn strikes against it - it's just not a real computer. But OTOH I want to see it succeed, because I want something like this, but for real. Technology has been moving toward a device which integrates screen and input device, that squares the circle between a portable computer and a PDA. It's almost like Apple wanted to create that but it then gave up and said, "Let's just put out a big honkin' iPhone that you can't make calls on and see if people buy it." My fear is that it flops and scares off anybody from coming up with a good product in the same space.
For my money...I can't get over the small drive space. My iPod is 10x bigger than this, and that's half the size of either of my external drives. Between that and the "only runs Apple approved apps one at a time"...I don't think I could go for this.
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