Let me begin by saying I really don't care that much about Apple one way or the other. My friends love to try and get me riled up about various subjects*, but I honestly don't really give a damn about Apple computers. If you need a new computer and you are willing to pay a premium price, go for it. I think there OS is better then the last few M$ OS's I have used, but I walk a different path then both of those.
With all that said, I really get pissed when I see Steve Jobs say shit like this, "It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it."
So let's think about both of these ideas, the first one is where I get my most anger. The second is just silly.
Let's take the second first. Task Killers. Steve...it's been a while since I used a MAC, but I am damn near certain that OS X has a way to kill tasks. Does that mean that you blew it on your flag ship OS? Now, maybe you don't have a task killer proper, but I seriously doubt you went through the effort of making it impossible to run kill -9 from the shell**. So let me know when you get that right, and I'll buy your expensive and beautiful hardware.
The first thought really chaps my ass though. It just seems to be another case of Jobs just pushing his own agenda on style. Look I understand that a stylus is annoying when you have to use it for everything you're doing, but is it really that hard to imagine how a stylus could be super useful? Let's go with two quick examples.
1) Students: Maybe just maybe students would like to be able to download lecture notes, and annotate them directly on their light weight and portable tablet in class. That way you are reading the notes and making your own notes at the same time. That's right kids, all your thoughts about the subject in one handy place. Yeah...that would be blowing it Steve.
2) People who have to go to presentations all the time: Now this a broad category I know, but let's spit ball a couple of ways this could be awesome. How about an app that let's everyone connect to a site where a presentation is being given, and various people can annotate a presentation as it's happening. You can either work on your own copy or you could have a shared copy that everyone is writing ideas down on. Yeah...that would suck. I much prefer the meeting notes that often make little to no sense and are hard to correlate back to what was actually happening.
Since going green is all the rage, wouldn't be it be great to be able to go to a
meeting, and instead of getting tons of handouts everyone gets their on copy of
the hand out on their tablet that they can mark up any way the wish? Companies it
crap like that up.
Again, I believe over all Apple is a solid company. They are not (in general) my cup of tea, but I can see why people like them. However when Jobs says bullshit like this it drives nuts. Maybe...just maybe Steve, there are many people out there with different needs then your own, and maybe just maybe a more open approach would allow you to increase your market share even more. Or maybe you're simply not interested in that sort of thing. Your call.
*usually with a good bit of success.
**For those who are not into the Unix, kill -9 is how you cause any process to end on a *nix OS. OS X is built off FreeBSD, which in turn is similar to Unix. Got all that?
*** A solid argument can be made that it is in fact his job to push his agenda
Friday, April 9, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i don't see how you couldn't do all of those things (writing, highlighting, annotating) with the keyboard as opposed to a stylus. the one real reason i can see for a stylus would be for designers/artists using the iPad as a wacom tablet, which to my knowledge is very much in the cards for the iPad's immediate future.
as for task managing, the presence of task killing on OSX doesn't really disprove or suggest anything about the iPad's OS, which is by design dissimilar to those of traditional PCs. though i don't disagree the quote as a whole was pretty asinine. Jobs has a way of doing that.
we got an iPad, and it's a wonderful little toy, but at this point it's not too much more than that. it WILL be eventually, though, and that's where i don't understand people writing it off: when we're talking technology, and progress, how is it useful for intelligent people to naysay something because it deviates from what their current concepts of computing are?
I am not being a naysayer or writing it off. I am sure tablets will eventually catch on (most likely not for me but others). If anything, I am trying to come up with ways to make it useful to more people.
As to the keyboard, the problem there is that keyboard blocks part of the screen. Also You have less control over where you put your notes. With a stylus it's quicker and easier. You can just start writing everywhere. It would turn your iPad into a piece of paper, but not. It would be awesome.
Hah. I dig your attitude. I find apple annoying because of the culture. Not that it's bad, but it's the whole "Apple is the best" snobby culture. Obviously people get caught up in this culture like people go to Starbucks for more than a coffee.
The Printing Pressman
Post a Comment