Posts by SteveH

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  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    See my comments upthread about writing (and reading) in portrait format, which certainly seems like an advantage to me.

    I love portrait mode, but I can't see how this is much of an advantage for the iPad when the iPad's screen is only 1cm taller than my laptop's. And I'm already using portrait mode on my desktop.

    For me the ability to consume media anywhere on a decent size screen is a huge win. But I don't really have a need to create media away from my desk (beyond the odd email, tweet, or blog comment - which it's fine for), and it loses a lot of portability if you'll want to carry a keyboard around for doing a lot of typing. But no doubt we'll all use iPads slightly differently.

    The iPad is really great as a portable web browser/video player/digital photo frame/GPS. You wouldn't buy one solely as a music player but it does that too. I'm not too bothered if it's not also the world's best content creation device.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    I'm struck by those who claim that the iPad isn't a content generation system. Now, perhaps because my kind of content generation is mostly about sticking words together in these eclectic things I call "sentences," I'm not convinced the iPad isn't a content generation device out of the box.

    I don't think anyone is saying the iPad isn't capable of being used to generate content. Certainly that's not what I said. I said that content generation is not what it shines at - for example, it's got few advantages over a laptop or desktop if you're doing a lot of typing (especially if you've docked it to a keyboard).

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    I'm surprised more hasn't been made in reviews of the virtues of a portrait-oriented screen

    I'm a big fan of portrait-orientation as well. I run two 19" monitors on my desktop - one landscape and one portrait. I almost exclusively do my web browsing on the portrait monitor. It's also great for long paged documents. The landscape monitor is better for working with things like images and spreadsheets and gaming. I did actually toy with having both monitors in portrait mode but it doesn't work well for most games.

    I don't understand the move towards widescreen monitors. They're great for fullscreen video, sure, but are people really watching so much of that on their computers? For everything else the penalty to the height far outweighs the benefit of the extra width in my view. It's one of the reasons I hate having to work on my laptop.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    What to do?

    That is the question. The route that China is going has worked for Japan and Taiwan, both of which have much better labour conditions that they used to, and it seems to be working for China. Certainly boycotting Chinese products isn't going to help improve things over there.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    It was caught using the same slave labour as everybody else whilst making much more money per unit sold than anybody else.

    Giovanni, I don't think you ever backed up your claim that Apple made more per device than others in the same markets. I tried to come up with some:
    HTC Magic: cost $158.69, price AU$900 (Vodafone AU)
    iPhone 3GS 16GB: cost $172.46, price AU$880 (Vodaphone AU), US$599
    Motorola Droid: cost $187.75, price US$599
    Nexus One: cost $174.15, price US$529

    It doesn't look to me like Apple are making significantly more on the iPhone than others are making on similar phones.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    Gold? Imagine the wank value too.

    The wank value would be very high indeed since a big CRT can contain 2kg of lead - that much gold is something like $120,000 if my maths is right. The lead also helps the glass quality. No idea if gold would work as well.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    I read somewhere that the average life of an iPhone is a little shy of two years. Not because the machines malfunction, but rather because the people upgrade

    I wonder how much of that is due to the fixed term contracts? Mine is coming off contact in a couple of months and it will be very tempting to upgrade when Vodafone will chip in at least $500 if I'll stay with them for two more years.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    It's a consumer research firm that conducted this "psychological study". And you can tell by the fact that only a consumer research firm would have "selfish elite" and "independent geek" as psychological profiles. It's a load of rubbish.

    I just read the methodology. They inserted the questions into the "psychological surveys" they do on Facebook that people choose to take to get their personality type. So the respondents were self-selected.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    Read the article. It's actually rather amusing, especially in light of it being profiles based on interviewing 20,000 people.

    Blog with more detail: http://mytype.com/blog/?p=109
    Full report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34438276/iPad-Opinion-Profile-by-MyType-July-2010

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    iPad Owners Are ‘Selfish Elites.’ Critics Are ‘Independent Geeks.’ Discuss

    From the link:

    [iPad owners] are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.
    ...
    the study found that “bashing the iPad is, in a way, an identity statement for independent geeks,” wrote Koelbeck.

    “As a mainstream, closed-platform device whose major claim to fame is ease of use and sex appeal, the iPad is everything that they are not.”

    So if you own one you're unkind and non-altruistic and if you don't like them you're not sexy.

    Since Sep 2009 • 444 posts Report

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