kotomile

iTrader: (24)

Two questions then, Nate:

1. What's the iPad for then?

2. What's HTML5 and what does it do?

NastyNate

iTrader: (1)

From what I've seen there are 2 types of Ipad people.
1st are the ones that have little to no apple experience at all and are looking to invest a relatively small amount of money and start exploring what apple has to offer. they may have an Iphone or just an Ipod already but none of the computers or peripherals that go with them. Most of these folks just see an oversized Ipod touch.
I usually explain to them that this a good step towards an apple computer without jumping in completely. They will have a familiar interface and still be able to add any of the Iworks apps so they can do some typing through those programs. They can also check stocks, add games, etc to it that allows them to have a larger screen.

Then there's the people that already have the Iphone, Ipod, and every other Mac product on the Earth and want even more. I think this where the Ipad can really be used to its full potential. There is an app that allows them to remote into their Mac computer at home and pull fiels and such just like they were on that computer. I show this to a lot of business folks that need something on the go but don't really need the whole laptop. Realestate agents are a great example. They can access listings on the Ipad that are on the office computer and even print those listing. So when they get back with the client everything is ready to go for them.


As for what is HTML5... I haven't done squat to look into it. From what I understand it's going to be less prone to problems than Flash and that Apple supports it. Beyond that no clue.


Also: think of the Ipad as Apple's version of the Netbook. Laptops are getting bigger and bigger and this is filling a gap.

Version3

Sorry, but this is far less than accurate. Adobe starting a move away from Mac toward the Windows platform a long time ago. Code for the CS suite of products began to favor Windows the moment Adobe announced the move to Intel, which is odd because that is a hardware platform they were already very familiar with. The issue worsened a great deal when Adobe actively chose not to pursue 64bit support on OSX in tandem with Windows. The research and integration work with Apple for this support, started long before the support surfaced for Microsoft's platform, and the reason is partly history.

So Macromedia bought and refined this incredible product for deploying motion graphics, called Flash. Many of you are very familiar with it in it's recent iterations, but it was fairly obscure at one point. This was a point where Microsoft's media formats were failing to get traction, and QuickTime was the video/motion format to beat. Real was doing well with video alone, however did not have the type of embedded support QuickTime was seeing, and Apple managed to do it on Windows. So, Microsoft and Macromedia aligned to basically try to kill off QT. The trade was, Macromedia's Flash player product would be built with the help of MS engineers to have the best possible performance and compatibility on Windows, and any future versions for Apple's OS (and other platforms) would be ports to allow full functionality and nothing more. In return, MS would bundle Flash player with IE 4 and with Windows retail. THIS alone is the reason that Flash grew to the insanely high installed base that it eventually reached.

The product continued to be refined for Windows, and simply released for others. Flash has ALWAYS been a resource hog, and poor performer on Mac. This was deliberate.

As Adobe looked to strengthen it's position with the crowned King of the market-share in both business and personal PCs (not to mention the majority in internet browsers), Macromedia came in to view. They already had the market for browser-based animation captured, and were making year over year increases on the web development side with Dreamweaver. It was cheaper for Adobe to look at Macromedia as an acquisition, than it was to try to beat them in both segments... and it carried the bonus of a stronger alliance with Microsoft.

So, Adobe and MS being pals and all... we've seen this extend straight through to where we are today; Apple trying to make their platform more independent from a software vendor and competitor that has been forced to play both sides of the fence with them for over a decade already. Apple has picked it's battles and won once or twice. In this case, I think instead of trying to battle it out, they are using what they do best (marketing) to make sure the battle doesn't even occur. It's still business motivation. But I assure you, that although Apple is making the headlines currently for firing shots at Adobe and being rigid about improvements to try to make things work... there is a lot of history here, and it's not just as cut and dry to say "Jobs and Apple are just tyrants".




Now, the users. Yes, every user that's not in love with the iPad is going to continue to say "why not this and why not that". Apple builds personal lifestyle appliances and electronics. They also build computers. The iPad is the first, and does not want to be, or pretend to be the second. Several things happen when they do, number one of which is they can't really be the "best" and charge what they need to.

Explanation: By being the very best experience at the few things and essentially developing a sort of new category, they can make yet another run at doing what they did with the original iPod. If they wanted to be a full-blown tablet, they could make it incredible... but it would cost over $2000 putting them out of reach for the people they felt like they were targeting; casual users. It would have horrible battery life, and would never be able to really run a standard OS and remain a touch-based platform. It's a loss any way you slice it, because in the end, if it does "everything" it will cost more than every competitor (based on the Apple retail business model) and would not differentiate itself from the market in any way other than being aluminum. How much would that be worth?



It may not continue to be a success forever, but it's not likely to be a sudden failure either. It's outpaced every prediction of sales, moving over 1 million units already. Although you can find review sites panning it for not being the everything tablet, you aren't seeing a lot of complaining, belly-aching owners about how they were screwed. So it's already a success, and the one to beat. I for one hope that another company succeeds a beating them, because it will force Apple to really step up their game beyond incremental updates. Watch the next-gen iPhone unfold for proof positive of the effect of a good competitor (Android).

Apple has weathered this storm before. The iPod was beat into the ground day 1 for what it did not do. Now, their brand is a pop culture trend that generically labels portable music players, and is nearly as famous as the format it rallied around (MP3). And like it or hate it, they've done it again with the iPhone. Will the iPad sell everyone? No, no way. Neither did the iPod Touch or the iPhone. For 5 months we all read about how the iPhone didn't have this or that... but it hasn't failed.

The iPad is and will be a success with the people Apple targeted for sales. the rest of the gadget population will buy what they feel is a superior offering, and hopefully we'll all see success in the continued evolution of productions.


Sorry about the novel... Large Red Bull.

Version3

Additionally, we saw the same thing when Netbooks came to market. Tiny drives, somewhat high prices, slow speeds and 10% smaller keyboards. Everyone beat them in to the ground and said "I'd just get a laptop.". They found their market, found some traction and now are the standard everyone keeps throwing at Apple's new segment. It's a move in the right direction I think.

Version3

I'm sure Nate has an answer for this, but I'm apparently in a writing mood, so...


1. It's a personal internet appliance. It's for casual browsing, email and personal entertainment. The form factor is to keep it casual and fun. It's designed to provide the functionality it's good at, and remain fun to interact with. That's the only purpose it needs to satisfy. Nate is 100% right, many people that pan it, are looking at it as a laptop replacement... which is not only not what it's for, but it's not even the way it's being marketed.

2. It's an open standard by which current and future browsers implement rendering engines, techniques and browser architecture. In English (and in terms that relate only to the video/motion discussion here) it's a way that everyone can implement the same features, on different browsers and platforms, without the need for a specific 3rd party product (such as Flash).

So, you put in an HTML5 embedded video on a page, H264 specifically. A Windows machine hits it (once IE is REALLY compliant(ish)) and it sees that a video is there, and it uses it's native video player to show it to you (Windows Media) without requiring you to do anything, or run a plugin. Load the same page on a OSX machine, and you'll get the same standard performance under QuickTime. That's basically what it means. It translates to better performance (generally) for end users, and better implementation and content for content creators. It's theory with a degree of practice to date, but it's not a total replacement for Flash, and it will not kill Flash alone.

Flash will not likely die because of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and other technologies. If it indeed dies (and it will be much longer than 6 months) it will be due to how Adobe decides to respond to market trends and standards practices on both sides of the equation (content creation and delivery/implementation).

NastyNate

iTrader: (1)

Version 3 that first bit sounded almost exactly what our Apple Rep explained to us. Good info here. Keep it coming.

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

Oh, and everybody don't forget the new version of the iPhone. It has separate volume buttons and a forward facing camera!!! So now you **** can post video responses to your blogs more easily... Go drop $400 to replace your last years model iPhone so Apple can have pockets full of money!

The iPad to me is just baffling. It's an iPhone that is too big to carry easily, and doesn't make phone calls. But it sure is cool, look at all of these apps I can use.

thesnowboarder

iTrader: (15)

I think alot of photographers would/will be looking into an IPad for this alone:


I also like how i bought stocks at $70 a share, so i guess i am a bit biased.

wildfire0310

iTrader: (1)

First HTML5 is never going to replace Flash. Flash isn't just a video player, it is also an animation program and is used for creating website and such.