Apple’s Enterprise Inroads: The Apple Blog
2009 was the worst year in IT spending. Ever.
I’ll let that sink in for a minute.
Now, 2009 was a bad year for many aspects of business — sales, capital management, making a profit — but IT departments had it especially bad. Because IT is a support organization, everyone wants to use it but no one wants to pay for it, which means that IT almost always gets the budget leftovers. It’s hardly a surprise that IT got the seriously short end of the stick in 2009. According to a report by Gartner, spending on IT declined 5.2 percent overall last year among all verticals, and the fall was even worse in enterprise businesses, where spending fell 6.9 percent.
Naturally, that kind of drop in funding completely changes how IT departments prioritize their spending. For one thing, in the face of such spending cuts, standard hardware upgrades go right out the window. According to the same Gartner report, hardware spending dropped 16.9 percent in 2009. To make matters worse, IT departments also reduce headcount to save money — in 2009, fully 62 percent of companies cut IT headcount — which makes matters worse because there are now fewer people to support more work on the same hardware.
This is not a recipe for success.
Fortunately, now that it’s July 2010 and most companies are fully embracing the second half of this new fiscal year, IT budgets are slowly improving. IT budgets across the board are expected to gain 3.3 percent by year’s end. This leaves IT departments in the interesting position of having a reason to change their operations, and a little bit of money to make it happen. This is unusual.As a service organization, IT’s performance is measured on things like uptime, cost, and so on. As a result, IT departments tend to be very risk-averse and resistant to change. Whereas IT organizations typically resist change to avoid breaking things– If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — now there are some interesting pressures in play that make the way things are look broken already. Because IT headcount is depressed, IT corporations need to be focusing on reducing the need for support because there are fewer people around to do it. And, because of the clog in the hardware upgrade pipeline, there are more upgrades vying for the same dollars, which means that CIOs will be looking for upgrades that are either cheaper or serve multiple purposes. In short, IT departments are in the uncommon position of reevaluating their long-term direction in earnest.
Apple, being the savvy company that it is, has positioned itself well to capitalize on the IT departments looking to make a change. Some of the largest organizations in the world are taking another look at Apple products, and with good reason. There’s good data indicating that Apple computers cost significantly less to support than Windows PCs, both in terms of TCO and simple ease of support. And this is no theoretical result. According to another report from Gartner, Apple is gaining market share in laptops and desktops faster than anyone else, beating out competitors like Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Dell. And companies are adopting Apple’s devices, especially the iPad, for positions like sales because they have the flash and panache to seal a deal, but are simple enough that workers can use them with minimal training and robust enough that fairly little technical support is required. And if an iPad does break, it’s simple and straightforward to fix: just send a replacement. All of these factors are making Apple products look more and more attractive to struggling IT departments.
That’s why large enterprises like Wells Fargo and SAP are adopting the iPad for jobs ranging from sales to simple paper replacement. Mercedes-Benz is so pleased with the results of using iPads in 40 of its U.S. dealerships to handle credit applications that it’s considering using iPads in all 350 of them.
However, Apple’s latest foray into corporate America is ostensibly only the inroad of a much grander scheme. Gartner makes the excellent point that as virtualization and cloud technology matures and companies gain experience with them, such services will gain adoption very quickly because of the dramatic cost savings they offer organizations. Among the technology providers in this space, it will be the companies that develop these technologies into the most robust and easiest-to-use products that will win the day, and Apple’s track record combined with its new $1B data center show that Apple is positioning itself well to accept the mantle of leader in this burgeoning new field.
There has been much speculation about Apple’s new toy, but it’s fair to say that it’s building server capacity for something. Popular theories include a music streaming service because of Apple’s acquisition of Lala, and theories that the facility is for video hosting seem a lot more credible with the introduction of FaceTime and the iPad’s apparently impending camera. Data heads see a different picture, though: one that has Apple positioning itself or a strong enterprise presence. And ultimately, with Apple gaining such traction in the enterprise market, it would be foolish not to build cloud offerings for those customers, like simple file hosting or a virtual hosted Mac, to be delivered via its devices, like the iPad. And Apple’s no fool.
So, with Apple making solid gains in the corporate and enterprise markets, what’s next for technology’s golden child? You should expect to see more big-name customers adopting the iPad, and more iPad development shops springing up to fill the resulting need for corporate applications. However, ultimately, the real surprise will come when Apple reveals the purpose of its new data center.
For now, I like to think it holds the ghost of Newton.
Enterprise application of iPad use is growing. Companies are finding all kids of new use for this innovative device. In my opinion, the change has just begun...
HP Slate: First Look at New Tablet
The HP Slate — Hewlett-Packard’s answer to Apple’s iPad tablet — has made it into the wild. There isn’t too much back story, but basically, a Mexican website named Conecti.ca got hold of an HP Slate before the rest of us and gave it a look over. Here’s the full story…
The verdict from Conecti.ca? “Meh” — the internet colloquialism used frequently in English to describe general disinterest or apathy.
We’ve already discussed the details of the device, so we’ll cut to the bottom line.
Conecti.ca says they only had the device for a short amount of time, but Google Translate quotes them as saying “the problem [is that it's] a whole PC.” The general feeling was that, in response as an iPad killer, the Slate is not.
The article states “You have Flash, but unfortunately this means you have a long and annoying load time…” and state that the only device that will be competing against it is other netbooks, not tablets.
It comes with a fancy HDMI / USB dock for your enjoyment, along with an apparently brighter screen than the iPad. Plus it includes a custom media management suite. The plastic design feels “dense and tough,” though the review concludes that Slate is the “smallest complete netbook” they could find.
Despite all the general malaise regarding the product, Gizmodo seems upbeat, noting that “it’s way too early to dismiss its chances against the iPad and its upcoming wave of challengers.” They also dismissed the ‘netbook without a keyboard’ observation with “well…yeah…[duh].”
On paper, there’s a lot of devices that are ‘technically superior’ to the iPad, iPhone, etc… but if they don’t do something spectacular or offer something different, unique, easy etc… the way Apple does, then it doesn’t stack up.
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Could it challenge the iPad? Not in my opinion. It still winmo!
iPad 3G Available Starting April 30th - ipad - Gizmodo
iPad 3G Available Starting April 30th
Want to know when your pre-ordered iPad will arrive? April 30th. If you planned to buy one from an Apple Store? That'll be the same day, starting at 5pm. PM. So sleep in, nerds.
CUPERTINO, Calif., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced that the Wi-Fi + 3G models of its magical iPad™ will be delivered to US customers who've pre-ordered on Friday, April 30, and will be available in Apple retail stores the same day starting at 5:00 p.m.iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad's revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models are just 0.5 inches thick and weigh just 1.6 pounds-thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook-and deliver up to 10 hours of battery life for surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music, and up to nine hours of surfing the web using a 3G data network.*
Apple retail stores will offer a free Personal Setup service to every customer who buys an iPad at the store, helping them customize their new iPad by setting up their email, loading their favorite apps from the App Store, and more. US Apple retail stores are also hosting special iPad workshops to help customers learn more about this magical new product.
Pricing & Availability
iPad is available in Wi-Fi models in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available on April 30 in the US for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad is sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores, most Best Buy stores, select Apple Authorized Resellers and campus bookstores. AT&T is offering breakthrough 3G pre-paid data plans for iPad with easy, on-device activation and management.
iPad will be available at the end of May in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Apple will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders for iPad on May 10.
*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iPad, Multi-Touch and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Send an email to Mark Wilson, the author of this post, at mark@gizmodo.com.
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| What do you prefer 3G feature of the iPad unit or using a Mifi (personal Wifi access point)?
TechCrunchIT: CouchPad by Steve Gillmor
It’s taken this long to attempt to write something on the iPad. I took some notes at Google’s Atmosphere event just to try out the system, but quickly discovered that the newly realtimed Google Docs were only available in read only mode. A Google PR guy told me they were waiting on a “real browser” before rolling the tool out to iPad users sometime later this year. I ended up in gmail draft mode.
By now I’ve gotten the fundamental message, which is that Apple is rebuilding the Mac from the ground, or rather the pocket, up. The AppStore debuted with iPhone and iPad apps mushed together; now they are segregated as the iPad specific tools build out. The iPhone OS 4 announcements made clear that multitasking was the bedrock of the new OS, with the concurrent processes opening the door to sharing data between various services in realtime i.e. the network. Micromessages, popups, alerts, some kind of cross-app communication that makes realtime aware applications possible.
I’d be more frustrated if I didn’t have so much fun with the damn thing. I figured typing would be slower and more prone to mistakes, but it turns out that my pseudo touch typing “skills”, a hybrid of hunt and peck and awkward work-arounds, are somewhat easier to use in virtual mode than expected. Granted, reaching for the apostrophe involves going to the number screen and then annoyingly having to click back to the qwerty screen. I can only hope the billions of complaints will reach Cupertino ears before the next update.q
But we have a little secret as iPadders that will carry us through: we are part of a process that will get us to some oddly shared consensus complete with learned gestures that reboot our approach to the task of creating ideas. So much has been made of the focus on consuming that we miss the speed with which the new metaphors are taking root. Replacing a word, for example. I tap the word ignore in the previous sentence and type miss. Tap again and I’m back. I can’t quite remember what the old way was, but this new way is fast, fun, and a promotion for new tools in the pipeline.
In fact, it may be sooner than we think. If the OS was built to learn about these quirks or repeated fumbles we make such as the afore-mentioned apostrophe tap dance, couldn’t the software learn to go to some plan b where it offers a sort of learned macro that can be ratified by use. Or a macro that capitalizes Plan B for that matter.
Of course, I’ll still get the keyboard dock peripheral because it helps speed the transition to the atomization of the MacBook Air into its component parts. Already I’ve seen iPads pop up in corporate settings (it doesn’t hurt that my new Boss is over the iPad moon) and why not have a more enterprise mode that is engaged when these new peripherals are plugged in to the dock bus. A secret club of iPadders who’ve crossed over into the world of virtual touch on steroids. Isn’t that the Apple model anyway? Prescient elitism?
Google of course is doing everything it can to play along, keeping the pressure on Flash with YouTube while hand waving about ChromeOS and then validating the iPhone/iPad model by committing to Android as its tablet OS. Chrome the browser is busy destabilizing Firefox just in time for Mozilla antipathy toward H.264 not to mean a damn thing. It all couldn’t look more coordinated if we didn’t know better, which of course we don’t.
That’s because the lure of reinventing our tools is the same thing that causes my daughter to rearrange her room every month or so when she needs an excuse to not clean it up or do her homework. But it goes deeper than simple diversion; we’re really looking to step back and find the place where our intuition and what I assume meditation or yoga brings us. A place where we can find our center and look beyond the momentary and into the reasons why we work where and with whom we do.
Computing has always been a personal thing for me, in many respects taking the baton from the role music played at an earlier time in our history. It’s thrilling precisely because the boundaries can suddenly give way to unexpected delights, power, opportunity, and yes, the fleeting concept of a future we can invest in. As I sit here on the couch typing these virtual notes, something about the rhythm and even the orchestration of technologies — the sound of the virtual key clicking, the effortless autocorrect of spelling, even the fact that for a little while I’m not being interrupted by the relentless realtime alerts that multitasking allows all of this renders a feeling of purposeful calm that feels new and valuable. All the more because it’s unexpected.
And as it unfolds, I file away notes about improvements and ticket items for the kind of learning smarts that must come next. Where Google pushes forward, with its server side tools building one on another to create ever more compelling scenarios, that’s where the iPad needs to go. It will be OK for Jobs’ insistence on the apps being the platform, because once multitasking is enabled the strategy will be seamless and invisible to the user. That is, except for the superior battery and performance wins that it will then be Google’s turn to clone. And back and forth it will go.
Editor’s note: This is my first weekly (or so) column on TechCrunch(IT) since I started my new job at salesforce.com.
Great perspective and insight.
Ivy Leaguers asked to lay off the iPad
Ivy Leaguers asked to lay off the iPad
by Ken Ray (RSS feed) on Apr 13th 2010 at 5:00PM
No iPads for the Tigers. Princeton University's Office of Information Technology is asking students to please stop using Apple's latest wonder gadget on the campus wireless network.
According to the OIT, the issue is as follows: "Network monitoring has shown that many iPad devices are causing a problem on the campus network. These devices are continuing to use an IP address they have been leased well beyond the time they should."
The university tech types say they've seen the quirky DHCP behavior from the majority of iPads connecting to the campus WLAN. They blame a bug they believe exists in the iPad OS. The Princeton tiger team has hit Apple up for help but, until the fix is in, the OIT recommends not connecting an iPad to the campus network, as it is likely to malfunction.
The OIT says users who keep trying to connect may find their devices blocked, so that the stability and reliability of campus network services can be maintained.
This is not the first time iThings have run afoul of higher learning's network wonks. Duke University suffered network outages around the release of the iPhone in 2007 and blamed those on the iPhone invasion; those hiccups eventually turned out to be a problem with Cisco routers, not Apple's phone.
[via MacNN]
Say it's not so (I graduated from Cornell University oh so many years ago) that these leading Universities are limiting this technology oriented learning experience...
Apple hiring camera expert for iPad, may include USB Audio support with connection kit
Filed under: iPad
Apple hiring camera expert for iPad, may include USB Audio support with connection kit
by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Apr 16th 2010 at 6:00PM
I still haven't picked up an iPad yet, though I'm pretty convinced I will soon -- even if I don't need one myself, there's obviously a lot of great apps out there to try. But already there's rumbling that the camera train is due for a stop at iPad station. Apple is hiring a new member of the iPad team, and they're asking for a strong ability to "test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks." We've already seen that there's room in the device for a camera, so it's a pretty good guess that whenever the next version of the iPad rolls around (hopefully later rather than sooner for you early adopters), there will be a camera included.And in other iPad news, there are also rumors going around that the iPad's camera connection kit might support USB Audio as well. That's a bit of a surprise -- you wouldn't expect a kit for connecting a camera to also have USB Audio drivers included, but it is basically just a USB connector for the iPad's docking port, so maybe some crafty engineer at Apple has included support for another standard just for the heck of it. I'm sure plenty of audio pros will be grateful if it's true.
[via Engadget]
Camera coming on the iPad?
My iPad as a 'work' tool via Daily Kos: State of the Nation
My iPad as a tool
by kos
Sun Apr 11, 2010 at 08:02:02 AM PDT
Tech geeks love numbers. When discussing computers, they speak of gigabits and gigahertz, of RAM and ports. The more tech adept among them will even swap out the internals or write their own code. They are tinkerers extraordinaire, and are just as happy customizing their rigs as they are in using their machines for their intended purposes, be it work or pleasure.
Then there's everyone else.
I became a Mac user because I got tired of cracking my machine open to deal with hardware, and I got tired of fighting my software to get any work done. My work needs are simple: a browser, a word processor, and sporadic use of office productivity software (covered by Microsoft Office and Apple iWorks). With Google Docs, I use less and less of my desktop apps. I love cloud-based computing.
I was a PC gamer, but the current generation of dedicated gaming consoles took care of that. My Xbox, despite being made by Microsoft, is stable, fast, and runs my games perfectly. How could a company that gave us Windows build such a great gaming platform?
Because it was a closed system.
Able to control its hardware and software, Microsoft avoided the instability created by the endless hardware/software configurations found on PCs. Not only are users spared the pain of endless crashes, but they don't have to worry about hardware requirements when purchasing games. Rather than fret about whether one has enough Video RAM or processor speed, it's literally plug and play.
Of course, that kind of stability has a price. Microsoft requires Xbox developers to register themselves, and all games must be approved by the company before they can be sold to the public. Such rigidity limits the freedom of developers to write for the platform as they see fit, but it allows Microsoft to ensure that end users get the kind of enjoyable experience that keeps them buying Xbox games. Same goes for Sony and the PlayStation, and I'm sure for Nintendo and its Wii as well.
In the end, those closed gaming systems have been so effective, that they effectively killed PC gaming.
My Mac, while not perfect, is far more solid than my PCs of old. While the software isn't locked down, The hardware homogenization of Apple's lineup means fewer hardware-related crashes. And given how few third-party apps I run, my software-related crashes are kept to a minimum. The day HTML 5 fully kills off Flash will be the day that 95% of my infrequent crashes are eliminated. (Currently, I reboot my MacBook Pro about once every 2-3 months, crash maybe once every two weeks.)
And my iPhone? It's even more stable than my laptop. It's crashed maybe twice in the last three years. The iPad is similarly solid. Why? Because these two devices use the same "closed" approach that has served the video game console makers so well.
Why the iPad?
I travel a fair amount, and lugging my MacBook Pro is a slog. It weighs almost 6 lbs, including adapter, must be taken out during security at airports, will run out of power in flight before I hit the opposite coast, and runs toasty on my lap. And while most people like to curl up to a book or magazine before going to bed, I lug my big-ass laptop to bed with me, for a final pre-sleep tour of my favorite non-political sites. I'm sure my wife loves that.
I wanted something more portable.
Why not the iPad?
The tech community is highly polarized over this machine, with many angry with the machine's closed system. Software for the machine must be approved by Apple (though with over 180,000 applications for the iPhone and iPad, it's not exactly tough to get that approval). People also complain about the lack of third-party multi-tasking (Apple apps can multi-task). Apple claims that multi-tasking compromises the stability of the platform while draining valuable battery life, something it says it has fixed with the forthcoming upgrade to their iPhone OS this summer (which the iPad will get this fall).
The iPad, like the iPhone, also doesn't do Flash. Apple claims Flash creates system instability and is a huge battery drain. It is right. Are those drawbacks reason enough to refuse it on their mobile devices? That is certainly open to debate. But one thing's for sure, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is out to kill Flash, and given how many major sites have started working on Flash alternatives on their sites, the process has at least begun.
On the hardware front, there are no user-upgradeable parts. Even the battery can't be serviced by users. And the lack of USB ports has many seeing red. You can get a USB port via adapter, but many assume USB is an integral part of any computing device and should be directly included.
For some, those are deal breakers, and lucky for them, the marketplace will offer alternatives. Personally, none of that bothered me too much.
Laptop replacement?
I wasn't blown away at the iPad reveal in January (or was it February?), but I pre-ordered one anyway for one reason --the hope that I could leave my laptop at home when on the road. I got the device last Saturday, and spent three days in DC, Monday through Wednesday. The conclusion? I can use the iPad for about 90% of what I do on my laptop. As a travel machine, it was a huge success.
The Hardware
I put the iPad, ensconced in Apple's own case, along with the adapter and Bluetooth keyboard on my kitchen scale: 2.12 lbs (1.5 lbs from the iPad itself). I threw them into a small satchel, with a couple of magazines, and I was set to hit the road with barely a tug on my shoulder.
The lack of ports except for Apple's own proprietary adapter is mostly irrelevant to me. If I'm wired to something, I feel like I've failed. Still, I may be getting the VGA adapter at some point so I can power presentations from it. I may even present with it at Netroots Nation. And it would be kind of cool to be able to upload photos from my camera when on vacation, and that would require ... USB. So as annoying as dongles may be, I may end up with two of them. So maybe it would've been nice to have those two built into the machine.
The screen is beyond gorgeous, and if this thing emits any kind of heat, I couldn't feel it. Even my iPhone gets warm to to the touch, but this thing? Cool as a cucumber.
On Monday at SFO, I was asked to take it out when going through TSA's security screening. But by Wednesday on my way home at Dulles in D.C., the agency had sent official word to screeners that the iPad didn't generally need to be removed from its bag. Just like that, flying has gotten quite a bit easier.
But does it replace a laptop?
Like i said, I spent three days without my laptop. And like I also said, most of my work is either browser based, or Microsoft Office based.
On Monday, I took it out at my terminal at SFO and logged on. Spent the next hour catching up on news, mostly getting used to the interface. I hadn't played with the iPad over the weekend -- my kids claimed it almost immediately after it was delivered. While in DC I found some great artwork my 6-year-old had left on the machine, using a paint application I had downloaded for him.
The internet browsing experience was fantastic. The iPad doesn't display Flash, which is supposed to be bad, but I didn't notice. Apparently Flash isn't common on my favorite news sites. I also downloaded a couple more apps for later perusal, like the Netflix and Marvel Comics apps. I still haven't gotten around to playing with them.
I then got on the plane, and it being Virgin, I was able to get back online at 30,000 feet. I decided to catch up on email. I kept my Bluetooth keyboard in its bag so I could play with the onscreen software keyboard. I've gotta say, gmail on the iPad looks better than gmail on my laptop. Google's mobile gmail app is fantastic. And the onscreen keyboard was a cinch to use. In portrait mode you have to use thumbs to type, like an easier iPhone. But landscape, I could type on it as if on a physical keyboard. Now, it wasn't as easy as on a real keyboard. I like to rest my fingers on keys when they're not pressing down on them, and you can't do that on the multi-touch Apple screen. So my hands had to hover over the keys, which fatigued them quicker. All in all, I guesstimate that I can type about 30-40 words per minute on the iPad on-screen keyboard. I can type 90-100 words per minute on a physical keyboard. So, about less than half my usual output, but still definitely usable.
The biggest problem when typing on that on-screen keyboard is the lack of arrow keys. If I screwed up, it was hard to back up 2-3 words to make quick edits. I had to tap the screen where I wanted the edits made, a much slower process than simply tapping back on the keyboard. Even worse, there is no apostrophe on the first-level keyboard, you have to click on the number key to get to a secondary keyboard. Apostrophes are quite common, obviously. Much more common than the exclamation mark on that first level keyboard. Luckily, the iPad has the same auto-correct feature that the iPhone has, so most of the time, typing in the word sans-apostrophe is enough. But if you need to type "it's", typing "its" does you no good.
But those are minor quibbles. For quick emails and filling out forms, the on-screen keyboard was more than good enough. And I love the ability to get a period by hitting the space key twice. I wish I could do that on my physical keyboard. I didn't get a chance to do it, but blogging would be easy with that on-screen keyboard, and Twitter was a natural for it. In fact, I did quite a bit of Twittering that evening while flying out east.
Before I hit the sack on that red eye, I had two more tests for the iPad. I got a video from Jed that I needed to review. While Daily Kos TV still uses a Flash wrapper (which will change at some point in the near future), he sent a non-Flash version so I could review. The iPad had no trouble playing it. The thing is designed for (non-Flash) media. The other was a little bit more of a pleasant surprise. I was flying to DC for a board meeting of SB Nation, the other company I founded. The company's CEO emailed a copy of the powerpoint deck for the meeting. I clicked on the link, and Gmail spawned another browser window displaying the presentation perfectly via Google Docs. A button also asked if I wanted to open it up in Keynote (Apple's presentation app, which I had purchased earlier), and I did so. Keynote opened it up perfectly. If I was so inclined, I could edit the deck to my heart's content, and then email it back to myself.
I thought that was pretty cool.
In DC, I did little more than web surfing and check email. But on the way home Wednesday evening (with still 40% of juice left on the machine), I needed to work on a long document I was writing in Word. I had emailed it to myself before leaving on the trip, so it was waiting for me in Gmail. I clicked the link, and Google Docs opened it up for me. A button asked me if I wanted to open it up in Pages, Apple's word processor. I said I did, and I was suddenly faced with a 30-page document requiring heavy editing. Hmmm. The onscreen keyboard wasn't going to cut it here if I wanted to be efficient, and I did.
So I ignored the airline's prohibition against "any device that transmit signals, such as a cellphone or Bluetooth device", and fired up my Bluetooth keyboard. It synched up perfectly and the plane didn't crash. Success! I twittered my rule breaking so everyone knew I was such a rebel (did I mention how great Tweetdeck is on the iPad? Stellar!), and then got to work.
I propped up the iPad on the tray table, the keyboard on my lap, and got to work. And I've got to say, there was ZERO difference between the work I was doing, and doing it on my laptop. It was just as fast and efficient. The word processor worked great. Note, I wasn't doing fancy shit like version controls, track changes, adding footnotes, or things like that. This is not a full-fledged word processor, and had I needed that kind of functionality, I would've been SOL. But I didn't need those bells and whistles, so I was golden. BETTER than golden, because I worked on that machine the entire six-hour flight without having to worry about power, something that would've been impossible with my laptop.
Bottom line
My iPad scored big as my new travel machine. I needed it for basic word processing, downloading and viewing business documents (like the PPT presentation), web, and email. It did those tasks perfectly. The lack of third-party multi-tasking was at most a mild-annoyance, as I had no problem switching between Tweetdeck and whatever other task I was working on at the time. On my laptop, I can switch between apps near instantaneously. On the iPad, it might take 4-5 seconds, and that mild annoyance will be gone with the new OS upgrade this fall.
Will this work for you? Beats the shit out of me. It depends on what your job is, whether there are apps that fill your needs, whether you're happy or not with an on-screen keyboard, and whether you care enough about "open versus closed" systems to let Apple's heavy-handed control over the device's hardware and software bother you.
For me, all I care is whether a device makes my life easier. I could give a shit about whether the hackers love or hate it, or how much hype something has. The iPad filled my needs seamlessly, with only minor hassles. It was better than a laptop, allowing me to travel more efficiently.
Remember, if you don't like it, no one will make you buy it. Obama's ACORN goons aren't forcing you to an Apple store. There are alternatives that are "open" systems, if you like to tinker with your machine, blah blah blah.
But for me, this thing rocked.
Coda
At home, the iPad belongs to my kids. I've downloaded a bunch of educational apps, and the kids fight over the machine to either draw on it, or play. My six-year-old has already asked for one for his next birthday.
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Tags: iPad, technology (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions
Are you considering the Ipad as a notebook replacement for the mobile worker?
iPad VS HP Slate: Price Wars
Engadget has what looks like to be an internal slide for HP employees regarding the Slate, pricing, strategy and a side-by-side comparison of the iPad. Is it a fair match? Is it a match at all? Just how does the Slate stack up against Steve Job’s brain child? Read on…
To be fair, the comparisons of the iPad VS the Slate aren’t comparing Apples to Apples, because the experience on both devices isn’t the same. But HP’s leaked memo seems less concerned about the experience, and more concerned about the hardware. It details the iPad and the Slate side by side with a list of hardware components. Red highlights indicate the iPad’s advantage, while green highlights indicate the Slate’s advantage. The only things — acording to HP — that the iPad has on the Slate is battery life, wireless N support, a slightly larger resolution screen, and — what’s this? Price.
That’s right. The Slate is priced at $549 for the 32GB flash storage version or $599 if you want a 64GB version. The Slate’s winnings? HP sees a media card reader, a camera, expandable storage via a media card reader, and HDMI out with 1080p as winners against the iPad. (I suppose you can lump in that $549 gets you double the data for $50 bucks, versus the $100 difference between a 32GB and 16GB iPad.)
Just to be fair, the iPad has video out, just not 1080p via HDMI. You can get 720p via component. There isn’t a camera, or expandable storage, so obviously HP can tout these features exclusively. But the real difference when you boil it down is the user experience. And the HP Slate will include Windows 7 Home Premium, complete with a stylus.
So will that mean you’ll just have a sleek device with a clunky Windows experience? Well, the leaked slide contains a reference to an “HP touch-optimized UI,” so maybe the boys at HP have been working on a special touch-layer on top of Windows.
But still, the issue of experience remains. Will there also be HP touch-optimized Apps? That’s a question worth asking. Arguably, the iPad has the upper hand with a sleek user interface, and a ton of apps developers only have to make “HD” or “XL.” Of course, the Slate’s ability to have multiple apps open at once will be instantly appealing, just — will the device be? When people pick it up, will they fall in love, or wonder what’s so special about it? The Slate is actually lighter than the iPad, but only slightly. I attribute that to plastic instead of aluminum, and that might make or break a deal when someone picks up both of them side-by-side.
Again, it boils down to a wait-and-see. But one thing is for certain; HP has their cross-hairs on Apple.
But will they miss?
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Gizmodo's Essential iPad Apps - Best ipad apps - Gizmodo
Gizmodo's Essential iPad Apps
The iPad App Store is open! Here are the best of the apps so far—the ones you'll actually want when you finally get your iPad.
This guide will be updated multiple times this weekend, since apps are still flowing in by the hundred. Also, check up on our app review marathon liveblog, running all day today.
You might notice a few things about these apps: A lot of them are iPhone carryovers, and a lot of them cost more than you might be used to in the App Store economy. Both are valid observations! But for a first batch, these apps do look rather spectacular.
Also, check out our Essential iPhone Apps Directory.
Entertainment and Video
Netflix: Netflix streaming, over Wi-Fi. That's thousands of movies and shows, if you have an Netflix account. (Which costs, what, like 9 bucks a month nowadays? Brilliant.) Free.
ABC Player: One of the first TV apps in the store, and a promising start. It's essentially a slick interface for the ABC video content you can already stream on their website, and it's free.
Marvel Comics: The iPad is like something out of a sci-fi movie. Or a comic book. Also, it is a comic book. Excelsior! Free reader, paid comics.
iBooks: Apple's ebook store, which we saw in the keynote. It's the best thing going for iPad ebooks for now; we'll have to wait and see how if anyone else (Amazon, B&N) can do better.
NBA Game Time Courtside: Imagine having a full, interactive dashboard for every basketball game you watch. It's like that. Free
MLB At Bat: Lets you watch games live, just like the iPhone version, but for games you can't watch for licensing/blackout reasons, it'll basically simulate them. Also: Stats overload. $15.
ESPN ScoreCenter: If game-specific apps aren't your bag, ESPN ScoreCenter provides a sickeningly constant feed of sports information. Drilling down for specific game scores on your iPhone was one thing, but the columns, panes and frames here are almost too much. $5
Yahoo Entertainment: A TV listings guide/entertainment news/video hub, which pulls from Yahoo's vast network of sites. Free, and worth the download if just to see the sheer level of design.
SoundHound: IDs any music that's playing with a seriously fast recognition engine, but doesn't stop there: It does lyrics, music discovery, charts (based on what people are IDing, not buying) and full playlist playback. $5.
Shazam: Song recognition, but it won't recognize your own singing or humming like SoundHound, nor is its song recognition quite as good. But! It's free. So...
Pandora: Pandora's free music discovery app isn't overly ambitious in its transition to the iPad, sticking to its basic customized radio feature, while presenting artist info along your playlists. Still though, the music is free and unlimited, and exceedingly well chosen. (Algorithmed?)
Games
Flight Control: The objective: make sure your planes don't hit one another before they land, by tracing their paths with your finger. A natural fit for the iPhone, and an even more natural fit for the larger iPad. $5
Plants vs. Zombies: A simple tower defense game, in which you plant a variety of monstrous foliage to stop a horde of zombies from invading your house. Conceptual weirdness aside, the extra space granted by the iPad opens this game up. $10
Fieldrunners: The classic iPhone tower defense game, except bigger. $8
Scrabble for iPad: This is one of the apps early reviewers really flipped out about. Basically, it's a very pretty, very animated version of Scrabble. And if you have an iPhone, you can use it as a letter tray. $10
Mirror's Edge: An adaptation of that awesome jumping/sliding/shooting game that made a bunch of people motion sick when it came out on PS3 and Xbox. $13
Civilization Revolution: We sent around an email a few weeks ago about which kind of apps we really wanted for the iPad, and RTSes and turn-based strategy games were in everyone's top 5. Civilization is a classic in the genre. $13
Labyrinth 2: The iPhone's best marble rolling game was enjoyable precisely because of how complicated it had become—you weren't just dodging holes, you were dodging lasers, cannons, winds and security cameras. Plus, the subtle 3D graphics were always beautiful. $8
Uno: Little kids don't care about Flash, or multitasking, or whatever nerdy technical hangup you've got about the iPad. All kids care about is Uno. Uno! $7
Geometry Wars: Super-popular space shooter/puzzler makes more sense with touch controls than it ever did on a console, where it was fantastic anyway. $10
Smule Magic Piano: Piano apps for the iPad were inevitable. Contorted, bizarre, gamelike piano apps? Even better. $3
News/Social
NYT Editor's Choice: This is what the New York Times looks like on the iPad. Free.
USA Today: USA Today, too, decided to go with a faux-newspaper look. Free.
WSJ: The Wall Street Journal's paper-chic app is conservative, so to speak. (Also, notice the three biggest newspapers in the country released free apps on day one? Or really, day -2? Though there may be hidden subscription fees.)
AP: Gotta respect this news wire for going with an unorthodox design, and for making their app—which includes video as well as text and image content—free.
NPR for iPad: This is NPR, reimagined as a digital magazine. You can browse text and photo news while listening to audio. Free
Popular Science: It's tough to tell how the layout really works here, but the App Store tease suggests it's more than a simple magazine scan—and we're told it's influenced by the stunning concept we saw back in December. And hey, it's PopSci! $5
BBC: There's something serene and reassuring about the BBC's news coverage, whether it be video, print, or radio—all of which are here.
Bloomberg: Well hey, you iPad is now a hardcore finance terminal. Extra points for the All Business aesthetic. Free
StumbleUpon: Simple link sharing and discovery, via your StumbleUpon account. The service's wandering appeal makes more sense with two hands than a pair of thumbs. Free
Instapaper: Save just about anything you've come across online in a cleaned-up format for later perusal. $5
NewsRack: Every iPad needs an RSS reader. NewsRack is my personal favorite for the iPhone, and carries over well to the iPad. Special bonus: If you've already ponied up the $5 for the iPhone version, the iPad download is free.
Feeddler: If you don't want to spend another $10 just for a feed reader, Feeddler covers the basics (read: news leeching) for free.
Fluent News: If RSS readers aren't your style, and you want your daily news mashup to be a little more guided, fluent consolidates major new sources into a single interface. Free.
Accuweather Cirrus: YOU ARE NOW THE MASTER OF WEATHER! (PREDICTION! [READING!]) Free.
Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck for iPhone takes the app's column-based desktop app, and adapts it to the iPhone's screen, in either two column (portrait) or three column (landscape) modes.
AIM: AOL's instant messaging app looks pretty great, especially for the price. Free.
IM+: If you're looking for serious multi-protocol messaging—Live, Facebook, Yahoo, whatever—you'll have to shell out for IM+. $10
Loopt Pulse: Localism! Figure out what's going on around your sofa, from your sofa. Free
Dash Four: $2. Foursquare on the iPad might sound like a strange idea now, but it won't seem so strange next time you're in Starbucks, checking in on your iPad.
Craigsphone: Craiglist, the website, looks like shit. Craigslist, the iPad app, looks kind of great! I gotcher' free bikes and old couches and casual encounters, right here. Free
Productivity/Utilities
iWork: Again, expect some competition in the word processor/presentation app/spreadsheet arena, but not for a while. Until then, Pages, Numbers and Keynote make for a fairly impressive productivity suite for $30, or $10 each.
The Elements: A Visual Exploration: Sounds a bit pricey for a periodic table, but the vividly animated illustrations of every substance our world is made of more than make up for it. $14
Dragon Dictation: You speak, it writes. Free.
Wolfram Alpha: Remember when this was $50, available for the iPhone, and slightly less useful than Wolfram's website? Well, now the megasmart mathematical search engine/calculator is $2, available for the iPad, and looks wonderful.
National Geographic World Atlas HD: The earth, annotated by the people who've been obsessed with documenting it since before your grandparents were born. $2.
Dictionary.com: You need a dictionary on your iPad. Here is a free dictionary for your iPad. (And even a thesaurus!)
Epicurious: Expect a slew of iPad cookbooks to show up in the App Store, and expect a lot of them to be less useful than Epicurious' tremendous database of recipes. Free.
Kayak: A travel planner, writ large. It always felt weird dropping hundreds of dollars on airline tickets on your phone, anyway. Free.
Wikipanion: Again, an app that presents the data of its source in a better way than its source ever could—this one for Wikipedia. Free
IMDB: The ender-of-all-movie-arguments app will now sit dormant on your iPad, on your coffee table, waiting to distract you from that movie, with that guy. (What's his name?) Free.
Brushes: Scribbling/drawing/painting apps are such an obvious use for the iPad's touchscreen. This one's full-featured, but garish and toylike. $10
Sketchbook Pro: Sketchbook, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated, and a bit more powerful. This one's for the serious artists, while Brushes will probably appeal more to the kids. $8
Ebay: You got your iPad early, congrats! Now turn around, mark it up, and sell it to some dude in London, stat. Free.
Desktop Connect: Want to know what the iPad would be like running Windows? OS X? Linux? Download this VNC client, and control any computer in your house, wirelessly. $12
Bento: A life organizer, portfolio, scrapbook, and general information receptacle. $5
Voice Memos: The iPad doesn't come with a voice recorder app, for some reason. Here's a free one that looks like it records sounds just fine. Free
iDisplay: Want to use your iPad as a second monitor when it's docked, without messing with complicated manual VNC setups? That's what iDisplay does. It's pretty buggy now, but the developer (the same firm that does IM+) says fixes are coming. $5.
Special thanks to Rosa and David
Apple iPad Review — Click here for the main story
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Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.I really want them to make a RISK app...oh what it'd be to not have to worry about moving all those freaking army men around and not having to clean up after 5 hours of playing... Reply
I just wish some of them (really, Pandora) would incorporate a browser into their apps, that way I won't have to exit to listen (or do like ESPN radio did to allow multitasking). Reply
Kind of begs the question...why weren't these great little apps being developed for any platform before? I recognize the difference in how one interacts with the content, but I would enjoy these on my Macbook with trackpad input as well. They make a typical browser window look so clunky. Replyhfutrell promoted this comment
But none of these apps have been used heavily by anyone at Gizmodo, because none of them have iPads yet.I digress, I digress. Reply
Edited by Stndsh0 at 04/02/10 12:48 AM
Why the *%#^@ isn't that netflix app available for the iPhone???? ReplyEdited by chauncy that billups at 04/01/10 10:46 PM
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★ iPhone Apps on the iPad
iPhone Apps on the iPad
Monday, 8 March 2010
Brian X. Chen at Wired, on the default iPhone apps that aren’t present on the iPad:
But if you recall, the iPhone ships with some apps that appear to be left out from the iPad: Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather and Voice Memos. What gives?
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment, but I’m willing to guess Apple will just stick those apps in the App Store for a free download, and they’ll be the same apps as they were on the iPhone. After all, it’s unlikely there’s much to do with those particular apps to make them visually special for the iPad.
Actually, it’s sort of the opposite problem. It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who. Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps. At least that’s the story I’ve heard from a few well-informed little birdies.
(There is, alas, no secret “widget” mode for iPad in OS 3.2, either.)
Some (maybe even most?) iPhone games will work well as-is, on the iPad. Not just technically, but in terms of being fun and feeling right. But non-game iPhone apps that are just upscaled on the iPad are going to feel weird. And the run the app in a little iPhone-sized rectangle in the middle of an otherwise black screen mode is even weirder, I think. A 3.5-inch screen is just totally different than a 10-inch screen.
On the whole, it’s actually rather un-Apple-like that they’re even allowing iPhone apps to run unmodified on the iPad. It’s a huge compatibility win, of course: an instant market of thousands and thousands of titles. Given the runaway success of the App Store and the fundamental technical similarities between the iPhone and iPad, it’s the sort of decision that most companies wouldn’t even think twice about. But it’s undeniably a sub-optimal user experience. iPhone apps on the iPad are a “good enough” thing, not an “exactly right” thing. Most companies — the ones that wouldn’t even see it as a tough decision whether to allow iPhone apps to run on the iPad — settle for “good enough” all the time. Apple, on the other hand, usually goes for “exactly right”.
I’ll go so far as to predict that by the time Monday April 5 rolls around, it’ll already be an established meme that non-iPad-optimized iPhone apps are to the iPad what Classic apps were to Mac OS X — something you’ll make do with “for now” but can’t wait to abandon for the real thing.
I’m not saying it’s a mistake that Apple is allowing the iPad to run iPhone apps. I’m just saying that the iPad is not a big iPhone.
Previous: Attention Is the Real Resource
I so can not wait...
Google's Tablet versus Apple's iPad: Open versus Closed?
A very interesting next few months will be filled with hands on use of the iPad as well as more information (rumored) regarding Google's HTC built tablet. Wow! Technology (R)evolution is heating up in my humble opinion.
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