No, Really, iPad Critics: Just STFU!

*whining keen* Oh it’s not open! Oh it has no webcam! Oh it lacks USB ports! Oh it can’t run Flash! *whine whine whine*

I was around when the Mac was released. Back in 1984.

All of the gripes today have an irritating similarity to back then.

*condescending sneer* A mouse? I can use a keyboard! Who need icons? I can type my commands! Who wants to paint on a computer? *sneer sneer sneer*

Really, just STFU. You were annoying back then and you’re triply so today, over twenty-five years later.

99% of those Mac haters are now sitting in front of a box using a mouse and icons and windows. The 1% are the hardcore wanking at the CLI of Linux.

You people don’t matter. You’re techies. You’re plumbers. Your notion of what constitutes useful tech is the same as that of a custom car tinkerer who sneers at a Prius.

I sit here using a graphical web page interface to the WordPress blogging system. You would have me using something like vi to compose the text and then have me dick around with FTP for upload.

You’re simply irrelevant to the real world of people who look to tech to accomplish things.

You want openness and USB and even Flash? Go buy the Notion Ink Adam. Have you heard of it? It runs that “open” Android OS.

All the billions of electrons wasted on cranking about the iPad — where were all of you to wank over the Notion Ink? None of you posted about it. Because if you had, you would have referenced it to contrast it to the iPad in your whiny posts.

So just STFU.

The rest of us want the iPad because we can get excited and do things.

We want to have fun too.

And we want to do those things without wasting time trying to contort our products as a cheap exercise in ego-gratification.

You’re dismissed. Go away.

iPad: The Portable Personal Social Computer

This is my reaction to seeing the Stevenote. I will save the bit about iPad and books til tomorrow.

This is the bit where some people got it:

Click = big

That’s Stephen Fry there. Entirely coincidental. I didn’t highlight the guy next to him even though he has the same expression of delight because I suspect that’s Jon Ive himself. Look at that woman. And the guy. They’re kvelling!

Archos To Do Seven-Inch Android Mini-Tablet

I was waiting for this shoe to drop!

Archos 7” Android Tablet appears for iPad-killer Price

Right now, it’s only a rumor.

But Archos has had a seven-inch mini-tablet for some time. It’s a frikkin beast — a metal-clad brick.

Android ePub Reading Software Aldiko: 250,000 Downloads

@Hadrien of Feedbooks reports:

Congratulations, Team Aldiko!

Aldiko website

Previously here:

Two Vital Issues ALL Tablets Makers Are Ignoring
First Pictures Of Aldiko Running On A 10-Inch Screen!
IDPF Screws Up ePub eBook Covers For Everyone!
Barnes & Noble Nook Vs. Archos 5 Internet Tablet: Round Two
Barnes & Noble Nook Gets Trashed By Archos 5 Internet Tablet
The Coming Android Mini-Tablet Flood
Syntron Android Mini-Tablet: 3G, 8.9″ Screen
Camangi Android Mini-Tablet: ePub Built-In
Android OS Aldiko ePub Display Challenge
eBook Use On The Archos 5 Internet Tablet
eBook Notes For Monday, October 5, 2009
The eBook Cover Scandal
ALL eInk Devices: BAD For eBooks!

Kobo: We’ll Have iSlate eBooks In February

They are very sly about that in this press release:

KOBO ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY FOR TABLET COMPUTERS IN FEBRUARY 2010

Applications in Development for Windows 7, Android, and Additional Operating Systems

TORONTO, ON — January 22, 2010— With applications in development for Windows 7, Android and additional operating systems, Kobo, Inc. today announced that the service will be available for various tablet and slate computers in February 2010. Kobo (www.kobobooks.com) is a global eReading service that offers mobile applications on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Palm Pre, as well as support for netbooks and dedicated eReaders, like the Sony eReader. Kobo’s selection of popular books includes more than two million titles with content from major publishers including Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Harlequin.

“This announcement is in line with our mission to deliver the best eReading experience on any device,” said Michael Serbinis, Chief Executive Officer of Kobo. “2010 is proving to be the year of the tablet and we are working with major OEMs to ensure that Kobo apps are made available on those devices. Tablets give Kobo an opportunity to deliver eBooks, newspapers, and magazines to readers on yet another screen that is well equipped for reading.”

Free Kobo applications for tablet computers will be available beginning February 2010. Kobo’s applications will provide support for Windows 7, Android, and other key operating systems. Running on these platforms, Kobo will remain in sync across various devices, allowing users to read on their iPhone then switch to their tablet and continue where they left off.

Core to Kobo’s strategy is making eReading available everywhere and on any device, and the company believes the tablet platform is a significant new form factor for eReading. Kobo aggressively supports open standards like ePUB format, which gives readers the flexibility to read on any device.

Boldfaced red emphasis added by me.

Kobo is being aggressive here, pre-empting whatever publisher announcements happen on Wednesday. Barnes & Noble can’t be happy. Nor Amazon.

But Kobo customers will be.

Kobo Books

Previously here:

Shortcovers Changes Name, Goes Galactica

The iSlate Factor People Are Missing

The introduction of the iSlate is going to be a Richter-scale value shock in the industry.

Even if it comes in at a whopping US$999 (which I really hope it will not!), it’s going to reset the scale of value of everything.

From time to time, I go to J&R in Manhattan, a large electronics retailer. I go to check out prices and to see what’s new. And sometimes even to buy.

Boy Genius Report Misses Entire Point Of Android

Google Android Personal Thoughts

Some choice quotes:

There are so many fundamental issues with Android’s OS that still haven’t been addressed and it really makes my head spin.

And:

Android doesn’t make sense as a whole.

And:

For a company that’s so smart, and makes so much sense, it’s unbelievable how little sense Android makes in most places.

And:

Seriously Google, you take no responsibility for the actual “experience” of this phone, yet you tout it as your tag line.

I turn your attention to two key lines from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand:

But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine a folly–ask yourself only what it accomplishes.

I’ve asked that question. I’ve answered that question.

What none of you are getting is this: every single thing BGR points out about Android is deliberate.

Everyone is Google’s testbed. The biggest in all of recorded history.

There’s no real Android until the test is over and Google reins it all back under their own roof, their own hardware, their own sales outlet.

Google doesn’t want Android to be excellent. Because they’d lose future billions of dollars by having to share with partners.

There is no real Android today. Only the Android folly.

Period.

Previously here:

In Two Years, Only Google Will Use Android
Google, The Vampire
Now Google Can’t Be Trusted To Be Google!
I Don’t Like The Future Apple And Google Are Creating
The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains
Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!

CES, The Death Of eInk, And The Asus Factor

If you want to see what the eBook announcements were at CES, visit this one page. They’ve done great work compiling that list, even if they forgot Cool-er (which is understandable!).

Everything there that uses eInk you can ignore. They’re already d-e-d.

Some notes on the non-eInk devices after the break.

In Two Years, Only Google Will Use Android

Yesterday, I posted Google, The Vampire in which this revelation appeared:

This is going to sound really cynical, but the only thing that really matters is how many of these we ship – how many Android phones.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

The more I thought about that in the time since, the more it bothered me. What’s basically being said there is this:

1) This is a numbers racket we’re running
2) We don’t give a damn about the end user, they’re suckers

Google, The Vampire

Ah, the true colors are emerging. And they are not the happy hues of their logo!

Google open-source boss comes clean on Android

This is going to sound really cynical, but the only thing that really matters is how many of these we ship – how many Android phones.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

And:

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

Today, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, who thought they were Google’s closest partners, will begin to understand how, say, copyright holders have felt for some time now. For the first time, I suspect, they’ll be enjoying that recurring tingle of amazement and disbelief that (as Chris Castle explained here), Google would even try and pull off such a stunt. It took EMI Publishing six months to realise that Google had claimed digital rights to its songs, for example. But even if the decision to shaft its closest Android partners and biggest customers is an aberration, a one-off, a fling that Google will later regret – then the size of the parties involved means it’s going to have lasting repercussions.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

If you’re scratching your head wondering what the big deal is, then I suggest you do a quick news search on the number of stories containing the phrase ‘Google superphone’. Imagine how this looks to a punter. There are over a dozen Google phones. Only one is a real Google phone. Only one is a Google superphone. And you can only get that from Google. Won’t Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Acer and Samsung be feeling pleased today? Sony Ericsson’s X10 has a fairly identical spec (plus Sony branding) or better – but it’s not a ‘superphone’. And not the ‘real thing’.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Thanks to Scoble, I saw the Google Nexus One launch via UStream.

That “superphone” appellation was calculated for maximum PR and positioning effect.

It wasn’t a shot against Apple — it was a shot to the head of all of Google’s sucker partners.

And you still want to trust Google with all of our books?

This company is quickly making the greed and hubris of Microsoft in its heyday look like cheap hucksterism.

Google has been very, very clever not to have one person — a Gates, a Jobs — as a face, as a single and recurring public spokesman. By not having one point of evil to focus our wrath on, we can’t get a handle on who is doing any of this. In that respect, they have learned well from every human bureaucracy in history. Anonymity disperses accountability.

Perhaps this is why there hasn’t been the expected flood of Android mini-tablets at CES. Word has been spreading around the alleyways of tech that partnering with Google is not a contract — it’s a suicide pact.

Previously here:

Now Google Can’t Be Trusted To Be Google!
I Don’t Like The Future Apple And Google Are Creating
The Authors Guild Leadership: 21st Century Chamberlains
Writer Ursula K. Le Guin Nails Authors Guild
And You Will Trust Google With All Of Our Books?
This Is Print Publishing’s Final Warning
Mark The Words Of Dave Winer
Sergey Brin: Also Absolutely Inexcusably Clueless
Google Thinks It Owns Our Books!
The First Step Towards A Google Book Search Solution
Google Always Had POD Planned
God Bless Marybeth Peters Of The Copyright Office!
Google Books Settlement Notes #2
Tomorrow: Google Books Settlement Deadline For Writers
Cooler Adds Google’s One Million ePubs Of Crap!
Google Books Settlement Notes #1
Google’s Great Writer Rip-Off
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
The Capitulation Of Print Publishing
Reject The Google Book Search Settlement!