My Take on the iPad.
The iPad is not going to kill the Kindle 2, but the DX. Really.
I have made up my mind about Apple events since about 10 years ago when I spent over 10 thousand ringgit flying over to the United States to witness Steve’s keynotes at MacWorld: save the money and use it to buy the product instead.
I really don’t understand what the big fuss is about. iPad attackers have emerged out of no where and had their field day complaining about Apple’s new product.
Now, some disclosure before I go on: I know a few people at Apple, and I own a few Apple products, some people call me a fanboy but I really am just an industry watcher.
I have taken time to read about the complaints these people have, and they are expecting the iPad to do things it wasn’t designed to do. This is akin to expecting the Windows Mobile machine run Windows 7 apps. I will look at what iPad is, and isn’t, and see if we can take each of these complaints apart as we go.
What’s Wrong with the Name?
First, the name. Some people said that the name iPad is insensitive to women. Well, so does ThinkPad, the unfortunate CrunchPad, and even the ink pads have the word “pad” in their names, though I personally prefer a different name, but Apple can call it whatever they want, as long as the product performs as advertised.
Adobe Flash Support.
Flash slows down a site. Doesn’t matter how you look at it, it slows down a site. Admittedly, I am not a supporter of the format because it can be distracting on a small screen device though Happy Farms and other game widgets on Facebook are greatly missed, I won’t think of it as being life-and-death important.
The DRM Arguement.
Defective by Design’s argument stated that the Apple iPad uses Digital Restrictions Management takes away your right to share. But so does the Kindle! Amazon’e Kindle books are sold in a DRM-wrapped *.awz format that locks your purchases to the device (iPhone and Kindle) you have registered. They further argued that all applications must be signed by Apple if they are to run, “an unprecedented level of control for a general purpose computer”.
This all true but the iPad isn’t a “general purpose computer”. Really: If you want a general purpose computer, buy a netbook, seriously.
What made me laughed was when they said: “On top of this, Apple can push updates to the device over its wireless connection, letting them add or remove capabilities at any time. These restrictions make the iPad a particularly dangerous platform for the distribution of news media. Every publisher depends on permission from Apple, and Apple can remotely delete stories after they have been published.”
For this, I have three words to tell these people: “New York Times”, remember?
Apple has not “pushed” anything I didn’t want to me for as long as I can remember.
How can I take these guys seriously when they say things like these with a straight face? Anyone who can write a WebApp can publish UNRESTRICTED CONTENT onto the iPad as long as you have Internet access. And for the record, Amazon was the company that have remotely DELETED books people purchased, not Apple.
I buy my content off iTunes, what's wrong with that?
In the open letter to Steve Jobs, Deffective By Design said “DRM will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, block competing products (especially free software) censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users’ computers without notice– using the device’s “always on” network connection”.
They even had the balls to claim that “this past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protestors can have the technology they use turned against them. By making a computer where every application is under total, centralized control, Apple is endangering freedom to increase profits.”
I have been to many NGO meetings and many activists chose to use Apple products because Microsoft’s operating system cannot be trusted.
“Apple can say they will not abuse this power, but their record of App Store rejections and removals gives us no reason to trust them. The iPad’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution. We demand that Apple remove all DRM from its devices.”
Apple’s App Store currently has over 140,000 applications, that’s a lot more than Android’s Market Place, if you asked me, I’d trust Apple to certify whatever software that runs on my device so it doesn’t search and secretly send compromising pictures or confidential documents over the network to some hackers.
We have to be clear that the iPad isn’t a general purpose computer, but rather a general purpose computing appliance, Leo Laporte has rightly said that it is a “media consumption device” and more!
The iPad is a platform developed by Apple that is no different from the Xbox 360 that was developed by Microsoft, or Wii by Nintendo. Here I present you three cases that are not much different from Apple’s iPad:
Case #1: Xbox 360.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Tools and Middleware Program says: “The Xbox 360™ Tools and Middleware Program licenses professional developers of games software tools and games middleware applications to obtain full Xbox 360 Development Kits and to distribute Xbox 360 code to approved Xbox 360 developers and publishers.”According to the document, participation in the Xbox 360 Tools and Middleware Program is generally restricted to those companies with good industry references and with prior experience in the games tools and middleware technologies field. If you represent a startup company you may still be considered if the team is made up of experienced individuals, and/or you have sufficient industry interest in using your technology on our platform.
“Applications for entry to the Xbox 360 Tools and Middleware Program may be requested by emailing contact information and a brief description of the products and company to microsoft.com. Once your initial mail is received, if your proposal is of interest, you will be contacted.”
“Developers will be required to execute a non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft® prior to being considered for the program. Following review and acceptance of a submission form, selected applicants will be sent a license agreement, which must be executed before access to the development hardware and software can be granted.”
And yes, the parting words were no fine prints by any standards: “NOTE: Acceptance into the Xbox 360 Tools and Middleware Program in no way implies any endorsement by Microsoft of the developer or their work. NO XBOX SOFTWARE PRODUCT(S) MAY BE PUBLISHED, OR DISTRIBUTED TO END USERS, EXCEPT BY A LICENSED PUBLISHER PURSUANT TO AN XBOX DEVELOPMENT KIT AND XBOX PUBLISHER LICENSE AGREEMENT EXECUTED BY MICROSOFT.”
Case #2: Nintendo Wii.
“Nintendo’s software development kit, the WiiWare, allows people with big ideas but no budget to create Wii games which will go on sale online at the Wii Shop Channel after Nintendo has quality-checked the product, Nintendo said it will not vet game content, but ‘Adult Only’ or ‘Over 18’ titles are not welcome.Case #3: Nokia Mobile Phones.
Nokia’s software development kit allows you to build any application as long but application testing is a required component of the development process. Every application offered through Nokia sales channels must have Java Verified™ or Symbian Signed certification guaranteeing its integrity.
So, why doesn’t anyone complain about the “closeness” of the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii or Nokia mobile phones?
Here is my conspiracy theory:
Attacking the iPad makes people famous. With all the hype surrounding the new device, the mere mention of the word iPad brings you traffic. It’s yesterday’s news, to hold banners in front of Microsoft Headquarters proclaiming the evil empire’s stranglehold on “creativity and innovation”.
Microsoft’s Word was the tool for many writers who have been creating works of literary delights.
Band of Brothers. All Made in China.
Rich Media and Multilingual Support.
I own the iPod touch (and the classic, and the nano, and the iPhone), the screen size is a problem when I am out and about doing my things. I own the Kindle, the Sony Reader and had time to play with some of China’s ebook reader knock-off s and I missed colour pictures and creative layouts of coloured magazines. At home, among other things, I have a cheap China made MacBook Air lookalike netbook and my wife’s sexy Sony VAIO P — I think I can safely say I have had a chance to try out most of these devices in a home environment.
As far as multitasking is concerned, the iPad can certainly display video and play audio simultaneously while you read text on the screen. The iPod Nano can display lyrics as it plays music, so why do I care if my word processor runs somewhere in the background?
And what’s wrong with a bigger screen device that can do what the iPod touch does? The iPad has multilingual support right out of the box, I won’t need to hack the device the way I did to my Kindle just to read Chinese or Japanese. Or in the case against netbooks, Apple out renders any Windows device in terms of quality of display fonts and typography, in any language that I have seen.
Two-byte font support is something greatly appreciated by people in Asia who know more than one language.
So, has Apple just surpassed Microsoft to become the Evil Empire against the Do No Evil Google? Only time will tell.
The Last Laugh, anyone?
For now, I will just have to decide which iPad will I own. And I will wait till the time I laugh into the faces of the naysayers who would eventually cave in and get one they will own.
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the young vulcan is sooo… cute!
This post must have been too long~ hahaha…
yes, this post is very long…