Apple iPad announced

Aren't all apple products?:LOL:

/runs and hides

I know you're kidding by I've heard that from many people in the past. I have 17 computers at home, 6 of which are Macs. When I got my Mac Pro this coworker starts questioning my "geekiness", so I invite him to see the computer room in my apartment and there it is: my Sun Fire 4800, among my SGI and Sun workstations, my RS/6000 and my VAX. The guy didn't even say a word and has never questioned my technical background again.

Many people use Macs because it's the best tool for them. I personally wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 ft pole but respect people who choose to use it.

To go back on topic I'm a bit disappointed with the iPad but will get one anyway to play with the 3D hardware and browse the web from the couch/take it on plane trips and so on.
 
Is there anything out there that conclusively declares the "Apple A4" SoC as a Cortex A9 and not an ARM Cortex A8 ?
Engadget said something about it containing a Mali 50 class GPU and, to my understanding, that's actually the lowest spec'ed eGPU in ARM's current arsenal.
 
If you're asking for an actual iMac with a touch interface, forcing you to not only shift your hands away from the keyboard to the mouse, but also up and waving around on the screen you try to work on - then YES you're the only one wishing for that kind of ergonomic disaster. :)

I thought mac were all the rage for music, arts etc. a few years ago?

imagine using your fingers to tune virtual mixers, equalizers and stuff, plus using your computer (desktop or laptop or tablet) as a lighting console. even adding more touch screens when needed, on USB or video + USB, or networked ones, or using your iPad as a touch screen for the main computer.

What an ergonomic disaster that would be!
 
I thought mac were all the rage for music, arts etc. a few years ago?

imagine using your fingers to tune virtual mixers, equalizers and stuff, plus using your computer (desktop or laptop or tablet) as a lighting console. even adding more touch screens when needed, on USB or video + USB, or networked ones, or using your iPad as a touch screen for the main computer.

What an ergonomic disaster that would be!
I have to agree that a DJ app would seem to fit awesomely.
There's over a hundred thousand registered developers for the App Store, and I can't imagine that most who are active aren't thinking hard about how their apps could benefit from the added capabilities of the iPad, or trying to come up with new application areas that couldn't really be exploited on the smaller systems. It's virgin territory, whoever comes up with something original and compelling effectively has the market to themselves - for a while.
 
I thought mac were all the rage for music, arts etc. a few years ago?

imagine using your fingers to tune virtual mixers, equalizers and stuff, plus using your computer (desktop or laptop or tablet) as a lighting console. even adding more touch screens when needed, on USB or video + USB, or networked ones, or using your iPad as a touch screen for the main computer.

What an ergonomic disaster that would be!
The problem is not the touch based interface ... it's combining it with a vertical display in front of you. Would you position physical mixers, equalizers and stuff vertically?
 
I'm just curious ... if Apple had a macbook pro 11" which could fold it's screen over the keyboard to go into tablet form. Twice the weight and thickness, but nearly the same battery life and all the creature comforts of a real laptop (large storage, no need to transcode to 720P30, all your desktop applications, no hoop jumping required to connect it to other hardware).

Would any of you still be interested in the iPad? Because for those of us not tied to OSX that's what we can get right now.

Even if I was made of money the iPad would never be the only tablet I would buy, it has too many limitations which exclude uses for which tablets would be a good fit.
 
I know you're kidding by I've heard that from many people in the past. I have 17 computers at home, 6 of which are Macs. When I got my Mac Pro this coworker starts questioning my "geekiness", so I invite him to see the computer room in my apartment and there it is: my Sun Fire 4800, among my SGI and Sun workstations, my RS/6000 and my VAX. The guy didn't even say a word and has never questioned my technical background again.

To go back on topic I'm a bit disappointed with the iPad but will get one anyway to play with the 3D hardware and browse the web from the couch/take it on plane trips and so on.
You are firmly seated in the "rich" category then.
 
The time frame of development for the iPad makes a 250-MHz SGX535 or 540 with a Cortex-A8 the logical choice.

Support for the wide variety of general purpose apps maintained by iPhone OS is enough to meet the need of functionality for the mass market, so a desktop OS with its manual file and folder management is unnecessary and overcomplicated.

Controllable multitasking is a feature abused more often than utilized, so support for fast closing and reopening of state-saved apps, push notifications from inactive apps, a clipboard, and iPod music runnable in the background combines into a decent trade-off of functionality for the savings in performance and power.
 
The time frame of development for the iPad makes a 250-MHz SGX535 or 540 with a Cortex-A8 the logical choice.

Support for the wide variety of general purpose apps maintained by iPhone OS is enough to meet the need of functionality for the mass market, so a desktop OS with its manual file and folder management is unnecessary and overcomplicated.

Controllable multitasking is a feature abused more often than utilized, so support for fast closing and reopening of state-saved apps, push notifications from inactive apps, a clipboard, and iPod music runnable in the background combines into a decent trade-off of functionality for the savings in performance and power.

There's a far more important factor for chosing especially the 535 at a higher frequency than in the 3GS: http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/01/29/ipad-too-cheap/ What would it cost Apple to reuse the 535 in terms of licensing fees? Zero, nada, zilk. It doesn't have to be the 535 at any price but cost must have played a very important role in the A4 development IMO.
 
Anyone know what the Apple A4 processor they designed really is?

All I've done so far is read some of the specs in the new 3.2 beta SDK that has specific features for the iPad, and one thing that stood out to me quite a bit is that you can in fact start multiple threads from your application. It doesn't mean that you can boot up several applications at the same time, but it does seem increasingly likely that this functionality will appear in 4.0 eventually. It does also seem to me to make it more than likely that there's a multi-core processor in there, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed quad-core. We'll find out soon enough though - if I had a Mac available right now I could download the 3.2 beta SDK and run the iPad emulator, so so could others. While I'm not sure how reliable that would be for determining performance, I'm guessing it should be possible to figure it out.

Other things I noticed in the SDK is, well, that there hasn't been that much added to it just yet. ;) But notable for the iPad is that handling orientation changes are now required, there are a few more views (and ways to handle screen sizes - where it is notable that you can use an external display, in which case you should be able to handle 1280x720 as well as 1024x768), you are now free to design your own variations of pop-up keyboard type controls, there's the obvious split-container view, and there are a TONNE more text-handling features (fonts, size handling, etc.).

Interesting comment I heard on a podcast was that Adobe has just a week ago released an application that allows you to quickly convert a Flash application (like a game) to a well-performing version on the iPod/iPhone. I presume that refers to technology like promoted here:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/flash-platform-in-action/chroma-circuit-game-for-the-iphone-using-flash/

Also and that most websites are looking at getting rid of Flash for playing back video in favor of HTML5. I'm not sure how true this is, but apparently services like Hulu are looking to this in the medium-to-short term. That seems in line with the html5 beta that's started on youtube:

http://www.funkyspacemonkey.com/youtube-beta-html5-replace-current-flash-player

If this is the beginning of the end for Flash used for movies and such then ... woohoo! :)

Personally, I'm a big fan of Android's setup, but right now I'd still recommend the iPhone and family to most of my friends and family, simply because most people I know don't actually multi-task. As for alternative devices - sure, netbooks and and such are good and cheap, but for most the excellent multitouch and the ease of use of things like the basic user interface, the app-store and so on are actually the first selling points. Everything else follows that, at a distance. At least that's my experience so far.

Again, my personal preference is towards something like Android, but right now the limitations on installing applications on the limited main memory, requiring separate development and consumer configured phones and the dreadful performance of the device emulators make it so that the iPhone even has big plusses on the development side of things for me, something which after being shocked by basically having to buy an Intel Mac for development I never really expected.
 
The problem is not the touch based interface ... it's combining it with a vertical display in front of you. Would you position physical mixers, equalizers and stuff vertically?

I don't quite understand this. It does have an accelerometer built-in, so you can tilt the screen at will and it will change orientation.

This is nearly 3 years old by now, so I don't see how this can surprise you. I suppose you have tried using an iPhone or iPod Touch.
 
position fake music hardware vertically, as on a 19" rack? maybe :)
I'm no musician btw, but I've seen it. programs such as Reason. an endless vertical stack of elements, with scrolling.

but you were maybe thinking about the sequencer kind of use.


BTW I consider Ipad to have great hardware : using an IPS display especially is a good move (but that's linked to using it with every possible orientation.)
only the DRM, lack of connectors, and SD slot make it entirely avoidable.
 
Can i do this with ipad?

- Use a pen and draw nice graphs and formulas in my schoolnotes, and be able to type notes? Can i send them to my Windows pc and use it?

If so im gonna buy one.

Big shame it doesn't come with a proper OS thought.

However, maybe il just buy a proper windows based clone at some later point ;)
 
No handwriting or stylus support in the OS. Not sure it can be added by third-party.

Yeah probably go with Windows tablet for what you're thinking of.

ARM SOC and OS optimized for mobile use probably helps them hit the cost and battery target that a full OS would not.
 
I don't quite understand this. It does have an accelerometer built-in, so you can tilt the screen at will and it will change orientation.
Do pay attention to context please ... this was not about the iPad, this was about using a touch interface on the iMac.

"If you're asking for an actual iMac with a touch interface, forcing you to not only shift your hands away from the keyboard to the mouse, but also up and waving around on the screen you try to work on - then YES you're the only one wishing for that kind of ergonomic disaster."
 
I'm just curious ... if Apple had a macbook pro 11" which could fold it's screen over the keyboard to go into tablet form. Twice the weight and thickness, but nearly the same battery life and all the creature comforts of a real laptop (large storage, no need to transcode to 720P30, all your desktop applications, no hoop jumping required to connect it to other hardware).

Would any of you still be interested in the iPad? Because for those of us not tied to OSX that's what we can get right now.
Actually, yes.

For one, I think the iPad is already quite heavy for a handheld device. But more importantly, a convertible tablet PC capable of running generic, desktop-targeted PC software simply wouldn't draw the same amount of developer interest. If you can use it as a normal laptop, why bother designing a new UI? It would therefore - most of the time - remain a somewhat fancy, low-performance, generic PC. I guess a Mac tablet/convertible would have a more prominent position within the Mac lineup, but it still wouldn't get as much software specifically written for it as the handheld console that is the iPad.
 
Developer interest? Who cares. It needs to display recipes in the kitchen, websites on the couch and porn/movies in bed or on the road ... that covers about 99% of the uses.
 
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