It might frustrate the competition to hear this, but it needs to be said: the iPad 2 isn’t just the best tablet on the market, it feels like the only tablet on the market. As much as we’d like to say that something like the Xoom has threatened Apple’s presence in this space, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to do that. Is the iPad 2 a perfect product? Absolutely not. The cameras are severely lacking, the screen — while extremely high quality — is touting last year’s spec, and its operating system still has significant annoyances, like the aggravating pop-up notifications. At a price point of $499, and lots of options after that (like more storage and models that work on both Verizon’s and AT&T’s 3G networks), there’s little to argue about in the way of price, and in terms of usability, apps like GarageBand prove that we haven’t even scratched the surface of what the iPad can do.
The $200 Tablet
The Wall Street Journal’s Brett Arends bought a Nook Color, rooted it, and is calling it a tablet:
Be aware that you perform this software hack entirely at your own risk. Barnes & Noble says it invalidates your warranty. The process ran smoothly for me, but when I read the Internet chat rooms, I found at least a few people had had problems. If it goes wrong, you’re on your own.
Of course, it’s hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn’t have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It’s not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won’t run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating.
But as a basic tablet, it’s absolutely fine for me—and, I suspect, a lot of people. Indeed, I happen to prefer it to bigger rivals, because it actually slips into my overcoat pocket. (I hate having to carry things around.)
You get what you pay for. And you should never come to rely on something based on rooting or a jailbreak. And Brett is a moron.
The Power of Bad Ideas
Check out what the user ratings for the official Twitter client have done after the Dickbar release:
On Product Redesigns
Nameless Electronista Staff Member:
The iPad 2 has triggered a minor panic among PC and tablet makers, including a possible HP change in strategy for the future TouchPad, insiders said late Monday. A number of notebook designers, including Acer, ASUS, and HP, have reportedly looked at adding tablet features into what were going to be conventional designs. Digitimes cited the example of a 10-inch Eee Pad’s USB keyboard as an example of what sort of changes might take place.
Frantic decisions make for shitty products. Having shitty products is what got these companies in the trouble they’re in.
I sense a cycle.
On Beta Products
Although the Xoom has a lot to offer, the product feels very incomplete. A surprising number of promised hardware and software features are not functional at launch and will have to be enabled in future updates. The Xoom’s quality is also diminished by some of the early technical issues and limitations that we encountered in Honeycomb. Google’s nascent tablet software has a ton of potential, but it also has some feature gaps and rough edges that reflect its lack of maturity.
[…]
The Xoom’s impressive hardware specifications and ambitious feature lineup are intriguing, but the product falls short of its full potential due to a general lack of completeness. It feels like it was rushed to market and delivered to consumers prematurely. The number of headline features that are simply absent at launch is emblematic of the device’s deficiencies.
Google doesn’t seem to get that it can’t ship beta products to paying customers.
The Nerd Camp for iPad 2 has Begun
Well, these guys probably have girlfriends.
The Community
There are two things I remind myself of daily in regards to social media. The first is that this technology exists to create true community. It’s not a game, or a toy, or a matter to be taken lightly. When you begin interacting online, you are dipping your foot into a very special place, where true friendships can grow and impressions can be made that affect future employment or reputation with potential customers. The Internet isn’t a disposable spoon to be used when convenient and thrown away without regard. Real relationships are formed, and actual people exist behind the lovely twitter avatars we see each day. Real people. With feelings and dreams and issues and needs.
But I also remind myself daily that these tools are here to push us deeper. Community can thrive online in ways like never before. But it still has limits to its reach, and we need to push beyond them. FaceTime offers face-to-face conversation to millions of people who have never seen each other’s face before – for better or for worse, of course – but it still cannot hold a candle to good conversation over a cup of coffee. I’m ashamed to admit that my friend Dave Caolo lives only two hours away from me, but we haven’t yet met in person. But we need to. Because relationships are designed to grow, and there’s a limit to how deeply you can know someone you’ve never shaken hands with, or watched laugh, or bought a beer.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’ve met some great guys online — dudes like Ben Brooks, Ian Hines, Joshua Schnell, Dave Caolo and more. We chat about a lot more than just Apple or tech — we talk about our families, our careers, our goals and more. It really is strange to think about the fact these relationships exist just because of the Internet.
Be sure to check out episode 13 of the Enough podcast, in which Patrick and Myke talk about this very thing.
‘Cascade of Broken Promises’
Seth Godin, on a rough experience at the Genius Bar:
Every employee means well. Every employee is overwhelmed by incoming traffic, most from people who have already had their promises broken. Every employee has discovered that it’s easier to make a promise and pass it along than it is to either tell the truth or keep the promise.
The cascade starts with the product. When your brand makes promises it can’t keep, your overworked staff bears the brunt.
Unfortunately, Seth’s case isn’t super uncommon. The bit about the poor handoff between employees and departments within the Apple Store Seth describes was common when I worked at the Bar.
The Apple Store usually knocks it out of the park, but when it misses, it really misses.
‘Not as Simple as Computer Tasks’
The fact that the iPad only lets me see one app at a time often does not help me focus. Instead, it forces me to switch between apps constantly, thus preventing me from focusing on my task. Every time I have to deal with the iPad’s task switching, I’m interrupted.
For some tasks, letting applications take up the whole screen is useful. Applications like Garage Band or Writer make good use of the screen. But a lot of the time, allowing more than one app to occupy the screen can actually help people focus, because human tasks are often not as simple as computer tasks, and may require people to be able to see more than just a single application.
I found this to be especially irritating on the iPad while trying to write. Right now, for this article, I’ve got Safari (with Instapaper, Lukas’ site and Justin’s site all in separate tabs) and MarsEdit open (again, with several windows going).
Messy? Yes. Efficient? Yes.
Conan, on iPad 2
The Chase
This brave new Apple is fast, agile and and above all, cool. Well, to be fair they’ve almost always been cool, but there’s something different this time. This isn’t like the iPod or the iPhone (or even the iMac for that matter.) The iPad marks a shift in the company. Before 2010 they had the luxury of waltzing into an existing market, picking a product, reinventing it and saying, “look how much better we made this.” With iPad, all that changed. Now that they’re creating markets Apple is finally forcing the competition to ask, “how are we going to keep up?” This is perhaps the first time a successful Apple product is in the lead and a generation beyond the also-rans. And they’re scaring the pants off of the competition.
Microsoft Urging Customers Away from IE 6
10 years ago a browser was born.
Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we’re in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it’s time to say goodbye.
This website is dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6 usage drop to less than 1% worldwide, so more websites can choose to drop support for Internet Explorer 6, saving hours of work for web developers.
Currently, worldwide usage of IE 6 is at 12 percent, with 34.5 percent of China’s web traffic being generated with the browser.