Well the name sucks. Let's see if Jobs can save the rest of the presentation

The devs should port VO to it.

Where's Steve Jobs?! They didn't have Steve Jobs in the [DELETED BY WHISTLER] Steve Jobs distortion field video!

The devs should port VO to it.

Not that it would be worth their time, but I actually think it might make a decent platform for VO. PvP combat would be tricky (not saying it wouldn't be awesome), but things like botting and trading would work well.

No support for MS Office. More a very large iPhone/iPod Touch than a whole Macbook crammed into a Macbook screen. Had high hopes for travel computing, where I often have to review, revise and comment on the fly, but rarely have to sit down and write a brief/memo from scratch. But this looks like gimmicky multimedia consumption shit. Will not buy, except maybe to build into my Jag's console...

Though I like iPad better than iSlate or some such crap.

Uh. They made a version of iWork for it. According to the specs, that version will support Office documents. What did you want, a copy of Office straight from Microsoft?

I saw that. Nobody wants to deal with potential iWork to MS Word/Excel/PPT issues, and it doesn't matter if those issues are more or less imagined. I can probably deal with that stuff just fine, and I can tell anyone subordinate to me to figure it out themselves.

But the partner/client to whom I'm sending revisions will not deal well with that sort of change -- to put it mildly. I had one guy refuse to believe that the reason he could not print a document "the way it is supposed to look" on his home printer was because of these crazy Supreme Court specific fonts that he did not have; he insisted that we had [DELETED BY WHISTLER] up the document's formatting. After over an hour on the phone with him and IT, I had a [DELETED BY WHISTLER] courier hand deliver an office printed copy to his home on Christmas Eve.

So yes, I want to be able to [DELETED BY WHISTLER] load and run MS Office for Mac on the [DELETED BY WHISTLER] thing and send attachments with file extension names that will not induce pointless panicking and screaming. Any other questions, [DELETED BY WHISTLER]?

Lol, I bet it has a built-in printer. The documents just come out right from the top like a polaroid camera. (probably not, but that would be [DELETED BY WHISTLER] awesome)

I would take iSlate just because then you don't think of this:



Other than that, yeah; it's an iPod Touch with a big screen, that's all. Like Lecter said, would be cool to build into a dashboard, can't think of much other use for it. It would be funny to put Skype on it or something and call someone on it... like having a giant iPhone up to your ear. Just for the reactions.

That is exactly what I thought of when I heard the name :P Good picture.

Eh. First thing I thought of was the PADDs from StarTrek. Shows how much of a geek I am.

I still hate the name, but have decided I really, really like the tablet itself. To anyone who thinks it's just a big iPod touch (as I did for most of the day after reading the keynote coverage), I strongly suggest actually watching the keynote online. I was very disappointed originally because all the hype suggested it would be a magical/revolutionary/etc device, and it sure doesn't read that way on paper.

But watching Steve Jobs use it (especially browsing the internets), it really does look like the future. There is so much more functionality you get out of the iPod touch concept when you make it big, I would call the iPod just a mini iPad. Watching Steve use it, you get the feeling that holding it and actually manipulating your computer by hand, in the Apple-Precise way*, it really is as special and revolutionary as he suggested it would be.

And gaming is going to be AMAZING. We'll get some totally new action... it'll be the iPhone but with much better hardware, and no need to sacrifice half the screen for a UI.

*That is, the crisp clean interface and design that Apple always gives

No stylus. No directly accessible USB port. No multithreading.

If I'm given one for free, I'll keep it. Not going to buy one.

Waaah waah wahh. I feel sorry for everyone who's going to miss out on it because a spec list doesn't convey the point of the product.

Of course it could turn out Apple designed it really shitty and it only looks good when Steve Jobs uses it... but I seriously doubt it. Everything that's been coming out about the tablet for the last year makes infinitely more sense if it just works

No stylus.

I would imagine Apple or someone else will develop a stylus for it, if there isn't already a third party device out there.

edit: Here you are

edit 2: The other thing is, if "they" can get Linux installed on an iPhone, I would wager it won't be long before someone hacks an OS of some flavour or other (preferably OSX) for the iPad. You would have to transfer and install all your applications via wifi, which wouldn't be ideal, but still. A stylus, photoshop, and an iPad.

The inability to multitask - to, say, play music while using iWorks - is also a huge turn off. This is a glorified iPod Touch, and it's clear that it will fail miserably as a netbook replacement. Whether there's a market for really large iPod Touches is unclear to me, though. I tend to think the 2nd or 3rd generation of iPad, which is more like a computer than a media player, will be wildly successful.

The inability to multitask - to, say, play music while using iWorks - is also a huge turn off.

What makes you think you can't do that? I've not run into anything explicitly stating so, and given that I can multitask in that manner on my iPhone (listen to music and do anything else), I can't imagine they would create that limitation in the iPad. That said, multitasking in other areas is severely limited on my iPhone. For instance, flipping over to another application while watching a video stops the video. They deal with the issue elegantly enough by saving your spot, but it's certainly not multitasking.

...and it's clear that it will fail miserably as a netbook replacement.

I wouldn't bet on that. I know a number of netbook owners who absolutely love the concept of the netbook (a small, portable web and email machine), but absolutely loathe the hardware. The one issue of course being the price. That said though, the people I've spoken to who own netbooks seem to think this thing is pretty neat, and don't seem to think the cost is an issue.

Still...

I tend to think the 2nd or 3rd generation of iPad...

Personally, I agree.

Edit: I should probably clarify the fact that the Netbook owners I know use it ONLY for email, surfing the net, and watching videos. Which makes them the exact demographic Apple is targeting with the iPad.

Yeah, I think the releases for the iPad will be like the iPhone... the first one is cool but not astoundingly awesome, and then by the second release they have all the negatives worked out and it kicks ass, and then the third will just be insane.

And there are styluses for the iPhone which will work on the iPad. The Pogo is supposed to be the best, but in all cases they tend to be love-or-hate products. I'm hoping the screen is a little more responsive than the iPhone's, in which case using a finger as though it were a pencil should be fine (IE, put your hand in the position to hold a pencil, but then extend your index finger a little further down. It's at a sort of side angle, and you're just touching with the tip, which makes it easier to see what you're doing than on normal touching)

And as I said, the iPod Touch is more of a mini iPad than this is a large iPod Touch. By taking the concept behind the iPod touch and applying it to a large screen and better hardware, you gain a fair amount.

Yeah, I really hope they redo the iPad with ability to use flash, a front facing camera, and a microphone.

Also, how will people with accents tell the difference between iPads and iPods in speech? Why did they change it from iSlate?

Haha I just noticed, 29 minutes into the keynote Jobs accidentally says "iPod" instead of "iPad"

ShankTank: I don't think they ever changed it. Knowing Apple, iPad was their plan for a long time. The only reason people ever suspected it would be called "iSlate" is because someone discovered that Apple had filed a patent for that name years ago. That was probably around the time they chose "iPad" instead