Chile Forum

No longer relevant

This could definitely hurt the Kindle. The entry price will make this one interesting to watch.

My first impression was that it was a giant ipod touch. I love my itouch but don't know how I would fit the ipad into my daily use.

It may replace my 9 inch Dell netbook, it would have to have USB though for an external hard drive.

xxx

I for one am really disappointed in Apple's latest offering. I'm longtime mac user and the greatest reason for this is OSX. I've been eagerly awaiting the iPad, so am quite sad. To launch a product that is supposed to give the netbook category a run for it's money and not load OSX (arguably Apples greatest selling point after the almighty iPod) onto it, is incredibly shortsighted. To not make it expandable (no card slot or even ONE usb port) is the kind of weird and stupid that smacks of greed. Can you say cloud dependence on iTunes apps store?

Essentially, it's a giant iTouch. No phone capabilities. No expandable memory unless you purchase attachments to be able to use SD cards. Unlike the phone and touch, it does not include a camera. The real deal breakers for anyone seriously contemplating it as an e-reader, are the fact it's battery life is only 10 hours compared to the kindle's 7 days (even with wifi on) and the fact that they went with an LED screen. The e-readers use E-Ink. Not because it's cheap technology, but because it provides a reading experience that is most comfortable on the eyes, it provides legibility in sunlight and is easy on the battery, hence the week+ battery life.

The deal breakers for anyone considering it as a netbook are it's lack of expandability, lack of a proper OS (still no flash support for the flash freaks still bitching about the lack of it on their iphones), no camera for video chatting and of course the price point. At it's base price of $499, it offers a mere 16gb and wifi (no 3G), it's coming in at the highest price end of most netbooks but with few of the perks that draw the average user to the netbook.

Personally, I love my macbook. My bf has a nice little sammy netbook that he uses which I enjoy playing on when I need to use windows (and everytime I die inside a little), but OSX is by far the superior experience. And yes, apple products are more expensive but as with most things, you get what you pay for. I've never bothered with an extended warranty with anything except my macbook. Why? because it gives me a full service warranty for 3 years, anywhere in the world. I'm able to walk into an apple store in Canada, or Italy or England or wherever and they'll fix it up for me, no issues or complications. I don't have to call a help desk in India. They have an actual location for me to go to for help.

It's a high quality product with a price tag to match, more or less. That being said, I wouldn't buy the iPad. I would have been far happier had they made a tablet macbook and priced it accordingly. It would have cost me more, but I would have probably bought it. Don't get me wrong, the iPad looks gorgeous, but I need more than just cloud computing and if I need something smaller than my macbook, I have my bf's Samsung netbook to offer me 160 gb, 3 usb slots, a card reader and a camera to chat with my niece in Canada on Skype.

So in my opinion this one's an epic fail for me at least. Granted they all said that about the iPod when they first launched it, but still, I need more than this. For something that size, I need something more than I could get from a smart phone.

I started my life as a geek envious of all the kids with the apples, but could never afford them. So I learned the PC. Then in recent years, I although not a mac client I still have an appreciation for them. I still however have the same problem. Price. Yea, I can afford to buy a mac whatever. I can also equip an office of with 3-5 linux desktops for half the price of buying one mac.

What really turned me off though was a I bought a iphone for my wife. Will never buy a mac anything again because of the vendor lock in problem.

Do you mean the proprietary aspect of the iPhone, solely dependant on iTunes apps or being locked in to whatever carrier you bought it from? Both reasons have deterred me from getting an iPhone as well. I know there are iPhones available that are sold unlocked and GSM ready, they're marketed for eastern countries, so you have to hunt for them and then they end up costing $600-700. At that price point I would gladly just invest in some of the newer smart phones. Sony Ericcson's latest Xperia is being released on the Android platform which I think is fantastic (and it comes with an actual keyboard which I prefer). Of course Japan gets it first and of course at the price it will likely cost, I can't justify getting a toy like that. Especially since I rarely use a cell phone But I love toys!

And yeah, Macs are expensive. You do get what you pay for though. My macbooks last one hell of a lot longer than a dell computer I once had the misfortune of owning. I do confess to having some curiosity about the rumoured HP tablets possibly coming out, they've been doing some interesting stuff, although their all-in-one computers.... not sure about the touch screen feature for giant screens. The fingerprints would drive me mad. Either way, the main drawback of that is the platform. I really and truly detest windows. I've played with Linux a bit and while I'm sure I could figure out how to use it successfully, it's a platform that you have to be willing to put some time into and already having OSX at home, it's made me complacent and lazy

Either way, in terms of e-readers, I'm holding out for one with the battery power, the e-ink and the ability to subscribe to all my rss feeds, not just the ones that are amazon approved. I also want something that's less proprietary. With the Kindle, you're locked into Amazon. With the iPad you're locked into iTunes. The Sony reader gives you a few more options, but still not quite what I want. I'm sure at some point, someone will come out with some Tablet/reader hybrid, something that will provide an actual computing/web experience and be able to switch to a reader experience when needed. Probably asus or msi, to begin with. Well, hope springs eternal anyways.

All of the above.

No longer relevant

I'm young + IPad is new and sparkly + everyone is talking about = I want one!!!!!

I still have no idea what it does but I'm jealous of everyone that has one already. Apple could bring out a pile of dog poo, call it IPoop and people would still buy it.
A parody on Apple and their bells and whistles: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1811646

I was under the impression that all iPhones come from the factory in the same condition and it is the carrier that locks them. If you can get to one before the carrier activates it for you it should not be SIM-locked and you can use it with any compatible SIM card.

The problem is that even if you pay the unsubsidized price of the phone none of the carriers in the Western Hemisphere will let go of the phones with out the lock on them. Everyone wants the guaranteed revenue.

My sticking point right now about the iPad is weather or not you can tether the WiFi model via Bluetooth to an iPhone so I wouldn’t need to get another data plan to have internet access on the go. Something tells me this probably won’t be an option that you can access without jail breaking the iPad… but I am still waiting to find out for sure.

Another ditto from me. Especially on the "smacks of greed" - - seriously no USB device? No OSX?! It really is absolutely worthless unless you want a very basic iPod Touch with a larger screen. The thing really serves no value over it being shiny and new. They will get some initial sales there but I too see this becoming an eventual flop.

On another note saw that Falabella, MacOnline, etc have brought down the 27" iMac's finally. 1.200.000. I would like to switch to linux but don't feel comfortable enough on it yet and again, ditto - - OS X works very, very well. Linux I need to put on an old comp and play with some before I'd feel confident on it. I also need to run Adobe graphics programs so its pretty much locks me into Windows or Mac so in the end I'm going to run with mac most likely.

I too was super disappointed in the iPad. It was a niche people would really like to fill and they totally, just totally blew it. Maybe Steve's sickness the past year plus has had him too far out of the dev loop?