Alan Pritt: A New Angle On The iPad

A New Angle on the iPad

Social without the internet? Yeah, Apple haven’t forgotten about real life. They’re not led by trying to build new innovative devices, with tonnes of features and taking advantage of the latest trends in social networks. They think how the masses could use it and then they obsess over making that experience great. They think through hundreds of scenarios and make sure their technology supports how people behave. Their goal is to make the technology disappear. Far too many tech companies want to make the technology as obvious as possible.

Like every other company, Apple has to make compromises. But they choose a different set of compromises to everyone else. The camera will come later because the camera makes sense to the masses. But it isn’t their priority. Other features won’t get added at all, because Apple have decided it doesn’t fit any experience that an ordinary person would desire.

An excellent post written from the point of view of real people.

He nails exactly why the iPad will sell in the jillions.

ePub eBooks From Apple Will Use FairPlay DRM

This has never been a question in my mind so I’m really shocked to see posts around wondering if the ePub eBooks sold through the iBookstore will have DRM.

Of course they will!

Fear Of iPad: Quote Of Infamy

I was thinking of a post where I would collect the dumbest Fear of iPad quotes. But I’m afraid I’d suffer a seizure of stupidity if I had to go back and re-read them.

Just as well because, really, this is the dumbest of them all:

Molly Wood: The Apple iPad: It’s just ahead of its time

Right now, the iPad is a product in search of a market. It’s kind of poorly implemented, feature-wise; it’s been poorly articulated, market-wise; and it’s hard to imagine why on earth you’d ever need such a thing at such a price.

Previously at Mike Cane’s Blog:

Dumbass Of The Year: Ed Colligan
A Jackass Quote For All Of History
Another Jackass Quote For All History — No, TWO Of Them!

I Won’t Miss Flash. Here’s Why, In One Image.

The site for the Sony Reader used to load quickly. Recently they did a revamp and clogged it all to hell with Flash. I had to go there today to find out a two-second bit of information: What dictionaries were in the Sony Reader.

I had to wait forever for this crap Flash to load first!

Click = big

Count the spinning wheels! And those are only the ones on-screen. There’s a bunch more off-screen too!

(Don’t bother trying this on your iPhone. Sony might have an iPhone-friendly version of the site.)

My crap desktop PC is old. A 1.6GHz Celeron. But still — the CPU in the iPad is a 1GHz A4. How much of that CPU do you want to see wasted on some insane web designer’s Flash wanking?

Kill off Flash, Apple. And good riddance to it!

A REAL Justification For Apple Censorship?

I’ve raged against Apple several times in regard to censorship.

As it turns out, there’s more to that story and it’s come out just recently: The Apple Soft Porn Store

The core problem is this: none of the parental controls actually remove restricted-rating applications from App Store searches and browsing. All the restrictions do is prevent purchase of the app.

And so Apple is pulling out those apps: Apple Reversing Policy on Smut Apps?

It strikes me that, although this wasn’t what I asked for, it’s probably less effort for Apple than trying to clarify the conflation of “contains smut” and “loads web pages” that the current ratings policy requires.

OK, I can understand Apple doing this.

But what I cannot understand is how in the world Parental Controls still allow adult apps to be seen in App Store listings?! The apps listed should be tied to the Parental Controls. I thought that was the case all along — because that makes sense. If this is a hole that’s existed all this time, it’s brain-dead stupid of Apple to have let it gone on for so long. I hope they will fix it.

And oh, all those apps that were adult in nature yet listed themselves with an Age Rating of 4+ — meaning safe for those only four years old and above? — they should be permanently banned from the App Store for that.

It’s never been my intent for children to see things intended for adult buyers.

I think this is yet another reason why the App Store needs librarians.

Previously here:

Apple’s Two-Faced Censorship At Work Again
Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!
Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!
God Bless Writer Derek Raymond
How Many Of THESE eBooks Will Apple Ban?
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!

iPad: iBooks Software Will Have Dictionary Lookup?

That’s what I surmise from a list of iPhone OS 3.2 SDK features listed over at Engadget.

Included dictionaries: Apple Dictionary, New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, Shogakukan Daijisen, Shogakukan Progressive English-Japanese Japanese-English Dictionary, and Shogakukan Ruigo Reikai Jiten (may also be used for a Dictionary app perhaps?)

I understand the need for a dictionary for Pages. That’s necessary for spellcheck.

But with a dictionary baked in the OS anyway, adding dictionary word lookup to iBooks wouldn’t be a difficult thing.

Models of the Sony Reader with dictionary word lookup use New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of English.

The Kindle uses The New Oxford American Dictionary.

The Barnes & Noble Nook uses Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Also important:

Much richer text API including low-level access to font data and highlevel support for drawing formatted text

I don’t know if that will help eCrap ePub any. I suspect it’s more for a future use.

The iPad Perspective Everyone Is Missing

If you think that’s insignificant, here’s a flashback for you from when the iPhone came out:

After fiddling with it for an hour, I know how to work the iPhone better than the Nokia I had for the past 2 years, even though the Nokia has far less capabilities.

GarageBand for iPad?

I’m sure Apple has already thought of this. iLife — or at least bits of it — for iPad can’t be far behind.

Still, permit me my wee revelation for today: