The new iPad

[Loki]

There was this news today on TV: Apple reveals the iPad.
Here's a video (the only one I've found) that shows what it is and what it can do:
Apple iPad revealed (http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2010/01/27/sot.apple.ipad.short.cnn).

I don't know if it could really be useful and how you're supposed to use it since it's so different from a laptop, but anyway... we'll see.

So, what do you think of this iPad?

[Daniel del Real]

YouTube - Apple iPad Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Hz8dhQw8Q)

Ok, this gadget makes the kindle looks like Tetris. Sure looks cool, but how much is it gonna be?

P.S. Apparently it starts from 499, at least that's what they say in the video

[Omo]

I don't know. I just watched the video and it had the atmosphere of a magic show, just without the trick. Sure, it looks cool and is more advanced than what we had until now, but I don't feel any need to own it.
I always wonder why so many people constantly need to have the newest technical gadgets; I'm usually years behind that. Am I the only one left to switch off my mobile (or at least the sound) before meeting someone, because I find it rude to interrupt a conversation I have one-on-one to favour someone who is absent? Am I the only one to still feel a kind of embarassment if someone publically (say, in a bus) shares details of his personal life I never wanted to know? Am I the only one to not google the name and look at social network sites when I meet someone new? ...
The list could go on.

[Eric]

It's all gonna be cool. But when you take your paperback to the pub, to bed, or to the beach, you have the one novel you're supposed to be reading to the end before you start the next 100 (as available on Kindle, so I believe).

While I'm the first to admit that I hop from one book to the other, I think that this new technology exacerbates a short attention span. When you've read five lines of an author and have got bored, there is no pressure on you to read on, if you can choose from another 100 on your iPod, iPad, iPud, or whatever.

So, without being a Luddite, I have great sympathy for Omo's opinion on this manic lunacy of rushing after the latest piece of technology. This is exactly the same as what happens with small children when given extravagant Christmas presents which they dump before Boxing Day.

Being a slave to trendy technology is the antithesis of cultural progress. Are people really so stupid that they rush out to buy the latest piece of iJunk even though it has hardly been tested in real life, as opposed to the laboratory?

[miercuri]

I am starting to find technology a little intimidating. Personally, I don't own an iPod, but my 11 year old sister does.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/3290/mike01282010.jpg

[Sibyl]

I have an iPod (at least four years old by now) but I don't feel the need to buy an iPad or any other iTechnology. I also don't get what's so special about an iPad, except its size.

[Stewart]

I have and iPod and and iPhone, but I feel no desire to own an iPad. When it comes to those Apple events, Steve Jobs could hold up anything (a clay brick, for example) and the people in the crowd will clap.

I suppose it will be interesting once we get feedback from the early adopters. The tablet market has never really existed, so if it it can do everything and more, as some sort of portable entertainment station (download films, TV, etc?), then it may fill a gap. But, right now, it just looks like an overgrown iPhone that doesn't make calls.

[Bjorn]

It's an impressive-looking machine, and I'm sure it's a lot of fun, but... I've got an iPod and a netbook. Both have 10 times the hard drive space the iPad has, and the netbook does everything the iPad does except better and with a proper keyboard. And there's no way I'm reading novels on a backlit screen.

http://i.imgur.com/oRffH.jpg

[Daniel del Real]

On the contrary, I've heard really bad comments about it, telling me it's just a giant ipod. It doesn't have USB entries, it's not multitasking so you can't listen to music and navigate at the same time and it also lacks many others features.

Here?s a funny example:

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ipad-vs-stone-600x400.jpg (http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ipad-vs-stone.jpg)

[Sibyl]

IF it had e-ink and could multi task, which seem like pretty simple things to ask for, it would be a great iPod/e-reader combo.