Although I am a big Apple fan, I can't think of anything that would make a tablet really desirable for me, especially since it'll probably be more like iphone than a mac. A compact mac tablet for under $600 would be very desirable, but 99% of everything on the appstore is crap so I'm only interested in it if it runs osx apps.

Personally I'm much more interested in what will be shown of iPhoneOS4.0 (if anything).

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2010 January 27, 6:46 am)

Bad things:

- it will run the iPhone OS, not OS X
- I'll have to wait 8 hours to see what the thing is all about because I have to sleep "this evening" (your morning in California when the tablet is unveiled)
- too expensive because it's Apple and I won't be able to afford it

Good things:

- 2 versions will be available: one without 3G networking and I don't want a new cell phone plan just to be able to play with it
- that's the only good thing for me

Conclusion:

- with 3G, it's a big iPhone
- without 3G, it's a big iPod Touch

Last edited by mypapa12 (2010 January 27, 7:19 am)

HP is coming out with a tablet as well.  I might look into that.

Let's not also forget the Freescale Semiconductor $199 tablet and the $500 Joojoo tablet.
It's been said that Apple is more excited about the tablet than they were
right before launching the iPhone.

So I guess we'll see how it plays out in an hour from now.

Still crossing my fingers hoping for some kind of Mac OS X software compability (or at least for a way for developers to port their OSX software with little or no modifications).

A LightPeak port would be nice to have too...

Last edited by chamcham (2010 January 27, 11:03 am)

I don't know, never in my life have I been able to afford new technology within a year of its release, so I don't care. Well, once I bought the video iPod when it came out, but I didn't even open the package till a couple of years later, completely forgot I had it in one of my rooms. Guess I'm not really a gadget person unless it fulfills some truly fundamental purpose in my life... /end another useless comment

I was also really unimpressed with this - it's just a giant iPod touch. My ideal device is still probably over a decade away, sadly...

First of all, ePaper needs to improve. I like reading off of a Kindle screen, but the technology's likely to stay at the text/images only level for several years. I also like the idea of tablet PCs (my friends' research advisor bought them for their whole lab and they're pretty nice) since I do a lot of handwriting work. Eventually having a flexible screen that you could write on would be amazing. A type of dual-screen setup would be excellent since I'd love to have one screen devoted to being a digital notepad while I could browse the web / use programs in the other. I guess aside from screen improvements and better handwriting recognition, most of the things I want could be taken care of with software (eg. notes -> LaTex typesetting, or a handwriting interface in Mathematica).

The problem with the tablet market is the only way I could imagine myself getting a tablet-ish device is if it would replace my laptop or drastically change my workflow. I can't see myself spending several hundred dollars for the slight convenience of an iPhone with a larger screen. One can only hope that Apple getting into the market will at least spur other companies to do so as well - a well done tablet device would change my life.

I think it will be a great experience to study with the tablet..(ipad)
it will get better and better. as for me the ipod touch really helped my study of Japanese! cant wait to get one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tjtrZl7 … r_embedded

While an OS upgrade might change this, the most disappointing thing is the inability to run multiple apps.   Makes it almost useless as a studying tool, when compared to my netbook.   At any time, I'll have 3-4 programs running on my netbook while studying.

I'll take utility of a netbook at a cheaper price over the wow factor of an iPad.

The eBook app does look rather catchy, though.

Their next product will be called iCantThinkOfaBetterName

I'm sure manga, light novels, and PDFs will look great on the iPad.
Honestly, that's probably what I'd use it for.

Now that I save my drama TV scripts in PDF form,
I can highlight sentences and notate the PDF with notes.

Too bad I won't be able to multitask and copy/paste into Anki, but
I guess I'll save that for my desktop at home... :-(

Codexus wrote:

I don't get why Apple's marketing is so successful. Apple products are generally not that great and too expensive for what they are.

I've got an iPod touch and that thing is full of bugs and while the touch screen is nice, the software itself is really lacking in features (probably to make it simple to use for newbies). Sure it looks pretty but the usability is actually quite poor.

I generally agree, but in the case of iPhone it's very competitive.

Ignoring that it has so much software support, competing products generally do some things better and some worse, for example you may be able to run Flash on Android, but you get a slower, choppier browsing experience without multi-touch gestures.  Until they can overcome that, I think the iPhone is still going to be more desirable to most punters.  If they put iPhone on Verizon the "Droid does" would be so "Droid done for".

I'm not very interested in iPad right now, but I think its good if it helps get the ball rolling further in the tablet market.

Last edited by vosmiura (2010 January 27, 10:42 pm)

I'm no apple lover but I think this tablet will do fine. Personally I don't like it since I already have a tablet PC and an iphone and this new product doesn't come close to either of this machines. However, this product is really focused for certain types of people. Kindle readers, people who don't use their PCs aside from internet and email. I think the iPad would be a great gift to my mom. I don't expect this to be nearly as big as the iPod or iPhone but it'll do miles better than the Air.

Side note: Can't stop thinking of maxipads when I hear iPad.