IPAD 2: buying one? « Singletrack Forum

Chat Forum

[closed]

IPAD 2: buying one?

211 posts & 72 voices | Started 1 year ago by CHB | Latest reply from 2unfit2ride

Tags:

ipad

Pages: « Previous 1…567 Next »

MrSmith - Member

We've just had ten delivered for our board who are all clamouring like mad to have a play with them. Now being board members at least one of them will leave it on a plane or a brothel within five minutes, no doubt still logged onto our network because they complained of having to keep logging in. The risk these things present is immense and the effort required to place controls around the access, remote kill functionality, file transfers, email etc etc is just huge and totally disproportionate to the function they provide over a laptop and blackberry.

does the 'find my iphone/mac' thingy not work with ipads then?
you can wipe the user data remotely as long as the device is connected to the intrnet/3g

Posted 1 year ago #
Big Dave - Member

Oh noes, you mean as per every other tech company ever? The bastards.

Technology is improving all the time but lets face facts; the original iphone was released without a lot of things, like 3g and a decent camera, things that were available at the time and well established. Like I say, I'm a cynic but the original iphone was compromised through the lack of cetain industry standard features. This did however did give Apple the chance to relaunch the new and improved 3g version after building up demand and hype for it only a short time after the original model was released. Every technology provider plans for future upgrades but Apple are so much more blatant in the way they do it that I'm left cold by their products.

My battered old IBM isn't top spec although it was once. Why does everything need to be the latest spec to do its job well? It was well specced for its day when new which means it is still more than capable today. In three years time the original ipad will probably seem like quite an inferior product by comparison.

Right... Does that not rather go against your previous argument that laptops are superior because they are more flexible, have USB, a keyboard, and can do a wide variety of things that you can't do on a tablet?

Not at all, the ipad and its ilk are being touted as portable multimedia hubs which should mean they are technically superior but in reality they aren't. The design limitations placed on them by the tablet format mean that they aren't too great at a lot of things because there are too many compromises involved (not being able to run flash seems like a bit weakness in the product). A laptop, as a portable computer, is by its nature a versatile piece of kit. Its just my view is that a mid range laptop will always be far superior to a ipad or android enabled tablet.

Posted 1 year ago #
andytherocketeer - Member

Does your keyboard spot when you are typing a URL and offer a .com/.co.uk key? Can you easily type âcçented characters? Smilies? Chinese?

No my browser does the .com/.co.uk bit.
Yes to accented chars (on my Linux PC - dunno how on this windoze comp)
Yes to smilies.
No to Chinese, but mine has Japanese I think. Certainly cuts/pastes Chinese and Japanese too.

If it ran Windows (or even MacOs for that matter) I'd perhaps be interested - perhaps.

Something I said for iPad1. If it ran full OSX, with touchscreen overlay, and allowed me to run all my proper Mac apps (and had SD, USB, proper filesystem access), then I'd be down the store right away to buy one at its current price level. With smartphone dumbed down shiny software, it's a £250 device with a shiny apple logo price premium, and a clever way of monetising what might otherwise have been free software.
Next MacOS look like it may get some level of convergence. I hope that's to add touchscreen type features to MacBook, rathter than dummbing down MacBook towards iPad/iTunes, enforcing all s/w to be vetted by a non independent team.

Posted 1 year ago #
MrSmith - Member

Its just my view is that a mid range laptop will always be far superior to a ipad or android enabled tablet.

yes that's obvious if you want a laptop not a tablet. it's also apparent that a laptop is no substitute for a mid priced tablet, if you want a tablet.

Posted 1 year ago #
molgrips - Member

Why does everything need to be the latest spec to do its job well?

Straw man ^^^ Most people don't think that of course.

Posted 1 year ago #
samuri - Member

does the 'find my iphone/mac' thingy not work with ipads then?
Yeah, but that's not a huge amount of use to us if someone is using it to read a directors emails. We want everything gone from that machine the instant they report it missing.

you can wipe the user data remotely as long as the device is connected to the intrnet/3g

There are a number of products out there that provide suitable levels of control. We're summing them up now. The best will wait for the ipad to get in touch and then BANG! It's clean.

Posted 1 year ago #
CaptainFlashheart - Member

Still, I won't be getting an iPad (probably): too expensive, and no Flash support.

Look, I'm not totally against them, OK? Besides, you buy what you want. You don't me to tell you what to do.

Posted 1 year ago #
ditch_jockey - Member

My battered old IBM isn't top spec although it was once. Why does everything need to be the latest spec to do its job well? It was well specced for its day when new which means it is still more than capable today. In three years time the original ipad will probably seem like quite an inferior product by comparison.

Gold star for stating the blatantly obvious about any piece of technology.

Not sure what Big Dave's point was about iThoughtsHD - it's a piece of software that offers the functionality I want to do a job in as transparent a way as possible. I couldn't give a rat's ass what it's called, and I'm not sure anyone would buy it for the name. If you look at the rave reviews it gets, they're generally focused on the functionality, rather than the form.

Posted 1 year ago #
MrSmith - Member

My battered old IBM isn't top spec although it was once. Why does everything need to be the latest spec to do its job well?

because faster/better computers save time and make me more money.
my 5 year old tower struggles with 2-3gb photoshop files or bulk processing raws to tiffs, it's now retired and i use my revved up macbookpro to cut down the processing time and the time waiting for the progress bar to get from left to right, the new macbooks with the thunderbolt interface means a 3gb in/out speed for a scratch disk and back-up plus the faster processors means another increase in productivity.

i guess if you have a spreadsheet and a jazzed up word document to produce then any old computer will suffice?

Posted 1 year ago #
GrahamS - Member

No my browser does the .com/.co.uk bit.
Yes to accented chars (on my Linux PC - dunno how on this windoze comp)
Yes to smilies.
No to Chinese, but mine has Japanese I think. Certainly cuts/pastes Chinese and Japanese too.

What I mean is that a touchscreen keyboard can be changed based on context.
So buttons can magically appear when typing addresses:

If I want to type ä then I can just hold "a" and select the right accent. To type that in Windows on a UK keyboard then I'd have to type Alt+0228 (nice!).
By "smilies" I mean I have 25 keyboards full of Unicode Emoji characters to choose from.
And by Chinese, I mean I can very quickly switch between a UK keyboard and Cangjie (or Arabic, Bulgarian, Vietnamese etc etc).

Not that a touchscreen keyboard is perfect, but just to illustrate that it does offer some advantages that a physical keyboard does not.

Posted 1 year ago #
jenbe - Member

if i wanted a shit under powered computer i would go to a carboot sale....not an apple store, apples are for suckers!

Posted 1 year ago #
GrahamS - Member

Man these threads always bring out the crappest trolls.

Posted 1 year ago #
breatheeasy - Member

and no Flash support.

When Apple brought out the tablet they had something daft like 95% marketshare. Now they are saying this will come down to 30ish%. If the other 70% use Flash, and developers 'stop' developing Apple products because of dev costs etc. then I could see Apple climbing down on their decision to ignore Flash.

Posted 1 year ago #
muppetWrangler - Member

jenbe has convinced me, I'm gonna sell the iPad.

Posted 1 year ago #
molgrips - Member

By "smilies" I mean I have 25 keyboards full of Unicode Emoji

Oh

My

GOD!

I just gotta have it! EEEeeee!!

Posted 1 year ago #
mogrim - Member

When Apple brought out the tablet they had something daft like 95% marketshare. Now they are saying this will come down to 30ish%. If the other 70% use Flash, and developers 'stop' developing Apple products because of dev costs etc. then I could see Apple climbing down on their decision to ignore Flash.

That would be ideal - I can understand the motives behind not supporting flash, both commercial and technical, but if I want a family machine that my kids can also use it's a real killer.

Posted 1 year ago #
Jamie - Member

Oh

My

GOD!

I just gotta have it! EEEeeee!!

I actually lol'd.

Good work Mr Grips.

Posted 1 year ago #
andytherocketeer - Member

If I want to type ä then I can just hold "a" and select the right accent. To type that in Windows on a UK keyboard then I'd have to type Alt+0228 (nice!).

Oh on Linux I just type AltGr-{ then a for ä
On here Win XP it seems to be AltGr-q for ä
I don't see that as being radically more long winded than holding a letter down until the character selector comes up and you choose what you want.
Can change my keyboard setting to pretty much anything with about 3 mouse clicks. No idea why I'd want to do that, and it's not exactly a major selling point for a slab or lappy/desktop OS of any brand... for me at least.

Now... USB and/or SD slot to plug my camera (card) into... now that'd be a selling point.

Posted 1 year ago #
GrahamS - Member

When Apple brought out the tablet they had something daft like 95% marketshare. Now they are saying this will come down to 30ish%

Yep. Combined sales of Android tablets had 13% of 2010 market. iPad 1 had 84%.
2011 will see lots more droid tablets being released (some rubbish but cheap, some expensive but nice) which will directly challenge the iPad 2 and take a considerable chunk of the market.

Not sure about the Flash point though. Apart from the cited issues with stability and performance, Flash has the same problem I discussed earlier: most interactive Flash apps out there at the moment were written to played/used with a mouse. Games that involve dragging-and-dropping, hovering or constant movement will not work well on touchscreens.

No doubt adobe will address this with new libraries etc, but folk expecting to be able to play everything currently at http://www.kongregate.com on their flash-enabled tablets will quickly realise they can't.

I think it is a good bullet point for Apple's competitors. But as it stands at the moment it isn't actually that useful.

Posted 1 year ago #
GrahamS - Member

Now... USB and/or SD slot to plug my camera (card) into... now that'd be a selling point.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC531ZM/A?fnode=MTc0MjU4NjE&mco=MTc0NzE1OTE

Posted 1 year ago #
molgrips - Member

most interactive Flash apps out there at the moment were written to played/used with a mouse

I have seen Windows PCs with touch screens that simply have the mouse pointer follow your finger and click when you press harder. Poor for usability really since touch screen OS/apps should be specifically designed for the different gesture language, but some flash game like say, Bejeweled would work like that.

Posted 1 year ago #
toby1 - Member

As a realistic issue (not just a pointless argument) I think the 30% of sale price of content going to Apple is the biggest issue - I actually really like the platform and would love an ipad, but the brooker article from last weekend really made me think about it. That and the fact that I have no way near that much free cash at the moment!

Posted 1 year ago #
andytherocketeer - Member

@GrahamS... preferably built-in.... just like on my eee (and earlier posts)

Posted 1 year ago #
cynic-al - Member

OK who am I meant to be bullying here?

Posted 1 year ago #
z1ppy - Member

get em boy, go on get em!

200th post (edited, as I can't count)

Posted 1 year ago #
GrahamS - Member

You all may enjoy this video:
http://video.teamcoco.com/video/conan.jsp?oid=245467

Posted 1 year ago #
Jamie - Member

Got 15 seconds into the Lopez advert before having to jam my iPhone in my eye.

Posted 1 year ago #
Kuco - Member

An Apple laptop with a touch screen would be nice.

Posted 1 year ago #
Jamie - Member

An Apple laptop with a touch screen would be nice.

Could not see it selling much. Well, apart from 1 to your good self.

Posted 1 year ago #
muppetWrangler - Member

An Apple laptop with a touch screen would be nice.

At the launch of the original iPad apple said they looked at the idea of touchscreen laptop and that it just didn't work ergonomically. I assume they meant lifting your hand to the vertical screen rather than resting it on the horizontal screen got tiresome pretty quickly.

Posted 1 year ago #
CHB - Member

25th March for UK. But not on main retailers to preorder yet.
There were some iPAD ones on the apple store for £289, nearly bought one of those instead, but they sold out.
I am not an apple fan, I have a HTC windows phone, and thats pretty good, but I do think that the whole Apple eco-syestem of apps and general support makes it unasailable for competitors. IF you can't beat em, join em?

Posted 1 year ago #
FeeFoo - Member

No Flash, me no buy.

Need Flash for Pokerstars.

Need Pokerstars.

Shame cos I'd love Pokerstars on an ipad.

Posted 1 year ago #
CaptJon - Member

FeeFoo - Member
No Flash, me no buy.

Need Flash for Pokerstars.

Need Pokerstars.

Shame cos I'd love Pokerstars on an ipad.

A friend, ahem, told me there are ways to ~~watch~~ play "poker" on non-flash sites.

Posted 1 year ago #
FeeFoo - Member

...ok but I specifically want to play on Pokerstars.

Which I believe is not possible on an iPad.

If they bring out a Pokerstars app, I'll be the first in the queue!

Posted 1 year ago #
CHB - Member

Just bought a 2month old 16gb iPad for £250. That will do me till the next one comes out.

Posted 1 year ago #