I was not really amused by the jokes the first time I saw them, and less so now. (I just get this impression of 'lol feminine products r funny hurr hurr'.)

And here I was hoping for an intelligent discussion about the Apple tablet. *sighs*

So, after I peeled my head off of my desk from the MARKETING NAME FAIL, I realized something....

It's just a big-ass iPod Touch with Kindle features.

For $500 I can get a netbook and an actual Kindle. (Not that I want a Kindle, because I like real books, thankyouverymuch.)

Aine Silveria wrote:

I was not really amused by the jokes the first time I saw them, and less so now. (I just get this impression of 'lol feminine products r funny hurr hurr'.)

And here I was hoping for an intelligent discussion about the Apple tablet. *sighs*

Well excuuuuuse me for living.

Chrisb just wanted to post a silly picture. He didn't claim it would make everyone laugh, and granted it might be offensive to some of us, but objections noted, is it really worth railing down the thread when it could be about what the hell the iPad is? Because I don't know.

I'm really out of the loop.

Iris wrote:

Poor marketing choice of name aside, this has gotten a lot of the students and professors in my graphic arts classes excited.  There's been a dwindling market for magazine and newspaper, which scares a lot of graphic artists (for hella good reason,) and the iPad seems like a good solution to keep the flow of media, and to have an incentive to keep that media flowing.  Although the price is high now, hopefully it'll drop to a more realistic price, and there will be need for more journalists, graphic artists, ect ect.

I honestly didn't draw the connection between pad like a pad of paper and a feminine napkin till I read Raven's comment. I found it funny because the first thing I thought was that most women use tampons, not pads. ;D

I actually don't think the price is too bad, but I also hope it drops after a while. I think the idea is great; iPods are really too small to do anything comprehensively on it, while laptops are bulky and inconvenient. The only fear I actually have is that it would break in my bag, but I'm sure they'd release a carrying case for it. Honestly, the idea of a *real* all-in-one is very alluring, especially for businessmen who need something more powerful than a Blackberry*. I know I would want one once I started working. The iPod touch is amazing, I have always been blown away at just how many applications there were. If you combine that with wifi or a data plan and a larger touch screen, you can do almost anything with an iPad, except take it running with you at the gym. (But they have iPods for that ;))

So yes, I will be drooling over it until I get the money for it.

BioKraze wrote:

chrisb wrote:

Aine Silveria wrote:

I was not really amused by the jokes the first time I saw them, and less so now. (I just get this impression of 'lol feminine products r funny hurr hurr'.)

And here I was hoping for an intelligent discussion about the Apple tablet. *sighs*

Well excuuuuuse me for living.

Dude, NO. Whatever YOU may think, it's not funny. It's extremely sexist, if you ask me. Not only do you seem to be trying to become the forum's latest comedian with this post, you're pissing off people who have been here longer than you.

Not really trying to be the comedian around here, it's just my style of humor. I am not trying to offend anyone either and was just being silly and immature, if I offended anyone I apologize, it honestly wasn't my intention. I just posted a silly picture a friend sent me, guess since I'm a guy I'm not really all to aware of why it would seem offensive, but it is and that's the point.

Raven Nightshade wrote:

For $500 I can get a netbook and an actual Kindle. (Not that I want a Kindle, because I like real books, thankyouverymuch.)

Thank you! That's how I feel, why would you want to buy a 900 dollar product for a nice new book converted into a .txt file.

Giovanna wrote:

Chrisb just wanted to post a silly picture. He didn't claim it would make everyone laugh, and granted it might be offensive to some of us, but objections noted, is it really worth railing down the thread when it could be about what the hell the iPad is? Because I don't know.

I'm really out of the loop.

It's a huge ass e-book that's trying to do to books what iTunes did for albums, problem is you can pick and choose songs off an album, but you can't pick and choose parts of e-books that tend to be very expensive.

Last edited by chrisb (01-28-2010 10:43:49 PM)

Chris, I apologize.  There's subtext here.  Aine didn't like your post for some reason, but she was as mild as she could be.  Bio, though, is Aine's friend and overreacts to things he perceives as hurting her, and he didn't do as good a job staying contained.  There was nothing wrong with your post.  That said, if you mostly wanted to share a joke and not have a discussion, the Shaved Ice Lounge is really more the place for it -- something I wouldn't expect a forum newcomer to know, which is completely okay.

Bio, read your PMs.

Is the e-book movement really that significant? I find reading novels on screen very...unsettling. It's not a novel if it's not paper and pages in my hands.

At this point those, Apple could fart and if it lights up, people will buy it.

What about making it like DVDs are getting to a lot? Where you buy the book as a hard copy and it comes with access to an e-book version you can dump on your whatever for the run? That seems to me the most sensible thing for nerds like me...

And here I thought Apple released their line of hygienic pads.

I don't know how to feel about it. I'm gonna sound old and say I prefer reading my books out of books. A Kindle-like product does sound more practical in the sense of transportation of large amounts of books or even using it as a storage system. I know it would be very practical for someone who likes books, but simply doesn't have anywhere to store large amounts of them. On the other hand, someone who likes books that much might not find the iPad very appealing. They might sooner use the benefits of the local library. Also, why do you need a special product to read books from? Couldn't you do it from a regular netbook or something? Sounds like a bunch of marketing which is trying to sell you something you didn't think you needed, until they said that you do.

(Though I don't know how they're pitching the iPad, so feel free to correct me.)

I wonder how much of my aversion comes from the novelty of it, rather than the disadvantages of it. For example, an iPad has a battery, which means it's something that has to be recharged. What if you're somewhere without a power source? A book won't run out of battery power. There's also that risk with most data-storage technology thingies where something might happen and you lose all your files. What then? Just collect it / buy it all over again? Maybe there are ways to retrieve it, but it wouldn't have happened if you had the text in book form. On the other hand, you might lose all your books in a fire or something, but most likely it won't happen right in front of your eyes.

P.S. No, Tamago. The picture was a box of pads with iPad written on it, methinks.

Looks like Apple is selling a product that's dated right off the shelf. When there's e-paper pads like Kindle out there, why would you buy an LCD model that weights more, heats more, breaks more easily and eats more power?

I would happily buy an e-book despite of my love for paper-bound volumes if it wasn't bound to a single store, and wasn't ridiculously expensive; would be great while travelling. For now, no product fulfills my demands in that area.

As I understand it, the iPad is actually a lot more than an e-reader, but one of the big features that they're pushing is the iTunes-like bookstore (iBooks, which does in fact look pretty bomb) they've created, rather than the e-reader technology itself. I think they're creating a similar thing for video, too, including YouTube, but I'm not sure on that one. It has internet access like a Blackberry or Droid, but on a larger scale. The graphics are supposed to be pretty frickin' impressive, and they're looking to use the touch screen to revolutionize game play (we'll see about that. The notion of dragging your fingertips around a screen to throw a grenade sounds like it would drive me crazy.  The iPad also has access to the iPhone app store, so things like the New York Times App, the Sports Illustrated App, and, of course, the making fart noises app(s).

However, it doesn't have a camera, the wi-fi/3G access is still pretty far behind other mobile technologies and super expensive, it can't multitask, there's no USB, no GPS and it doesn't support Flash player while browsing. And as someone said, the touch-screen keyboard is a huge issue already, and I'd be worried about it breaking!

I think it looks like an amazing breakthrough in technology, and, like most amazing breakthroughs in technology, I'm not really interested in getting one right away. It still has a lot of problems and WOW is it expensive, so while I look forward to having one in 3-5 years, for now I'm sticking my good old-fashioned laptop.

(This info about it is coming from reviews, so if I've gotten anything wrong, just give a shout. I'm no expert.)