Cables & Leads
A ridiculous amount of coverage has already been devoted to the iPad, and you know what? This is just the beginning.
As incredible as it may seem, we’re just on the cusp of iPad mania. That’s because Apple’s introduction of the iPad last week signalled the start of a nebulous period of roughly 60 days before the iPad is actually available in late March. Though you might reasonably assume there would be a lull in iPad coverage, just the opposite is the case. The mania seems to reach new heights each day, stoked by Apple’s secrecy, the fervour of Apple fanboys (and detractors), the questions and uncertainties raised by Apple’s announcement and the anticipation over actually being able to purchase an iPad.
Every nuance of Apple’s announcement, every decision about the iPad’s features or omissions (no camera, no Flash technology), every element of the iPad’s design and technology is being dissected in a seemingly endless stream of news articles and blog posts, with headlines like “Four of the iPad’s Biggest Whiffs,” “Apple iPad: 25 Unanswered Questions” and “The iPad’s Five Flaws, and Why They Don’t Matter.”
And, from all indications, iPad mania is not limited to rabid Apple enthusiasts. Everyone, it seems, wants to know what it’s really like. Stephen Colbert appeared at the Grammy Awards with an iPad, generating a fury of Twitter posts. The iPad isn’t even in stores, and yet it’s already a cultural icon. No wonder several friends of mine, when asking me about it, were surprised to learn you couldn’t order one yet.
It will be a relief when the iPad finally arrives.
Steve Jobs Showing the New iPad
Until then, here’s a primer on some of the key issues and questions to emerge about iPad, as well as spots to help you keep tabs on the latest iPad news, speculation and commentary.
• The publishing industry: In one extraordinary development, the iPad — and its iBookstore for e-books—apparently led to a weekend of brinksmanship between Amazon and Macmillan, a major book publisher, over pricing of books for Amazon’s Kindle device. (Macmillan wanted to raise prices.) Amazon relented, issuing a statement saying the company would “capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own books.”
As technologist John Gruber wrote at his blog, Daring Fireball: “Just me, or does it seem like an Apple device that won’t ship for another 53 days already upended Amazon’s Kindle business? What kind of sense does it make to accuse a publisher of having a ‘monopoly’ over its own titles?”
• The disappearing file system: Yes, that sounds technical, but bear with me; this issue has implications for everyone using computers. For years, computer users have gotten used to navigating through folders and files to find documents. Files, folders, documents — that’s the vocabulary of what it means to use a computer. If you want to work on a file, whether it’s a spreadsheet or an image, you find it, then open it, and start working.
But the iPad, like the iPhone and (as well as popular Apple applications, like iTunes), largely does away with the traditional file system, or so it seems. You want to work on a presentation? You open an app. To add cool effects to a photo? You choose the right app. It is quite possible this is a shift we will increasingly see in the software used on personal computers.
• Magazines: I was hoping for a whiz-bang demo of a tablet-friendly magazine at the iPad launch. No luck. The Unofficial Apple Weblog asked, “Where’s the iMag store?” But maybe Apple is counting on magazine publishers to develop new ways of distributing magazine via apps, as is already happening with the iPhone, or via websites optimized for the iPad’s touch-screen capabilities.
• Too much control of apps?: Pretty much anyone can develop and sell software for Macintosh and Windows computers, but if you want to sell an application for the iPad or iPhone, the app needs to get Apple’s OK. That’s controversial with the iPhone, but even more so with a device likely to have many more uses, including many professional ones. Such a system raises a lot of legitimate concerns about whether one company should have this level of control, and the possibilities for its abuse to harm competitors.
Plenty of other questions are being discussed and dissected in minute detail. What was Apple thinking by not including a camera? (That one’s mystifying to me.) Will the use of Flash, a technology used at many websites, decline in use because it’s not part of the iPhone and iPad? Will future versions of the iPad allow for multitasking — the ability to use several apps at once?
by Allan Hoffman
Article Source: http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/02/apple_ipad_mania_will_only_gro.html
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