iPad 2

[Karlos]

It's tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities.

What a load of rubbish. It's married with telling people what they want and need and then marketing it very successfully. I'd have far more respect for the company if they just said it like it is. They have long since surpassed Microsoft's darkest ambitions for completely controlling what their users do (and can do) with their products.

As it stands, if apple were smote from the face of the Earth tomorrow by a vengeful God, I'd not shed a single tear :lol:

[Karlos]

Don't confuse your dislike of their content vendor practices, cloud your view of their very tightly designed hardware and software solution.

I'm not. I just don't understand what the iPad is for and I've never seen a compelling argument put forward by anybody as to what problem it solves other than the "I don't already have one" issue. Seeing as how the iPad already fixed that, I'm even more surprised as to what the second one is for.

I'm not opposed to tablet computing per se, but it's not a standalone machine. You can't replace your regular computer with it and it sure as hell isn't as portable as your phone.

That's harsh, we have plenty of evidence that Microsft were actually guilty of anticompetitive practices...

I've never suggested otherwise. However, apple were not above slamming Microsoft for wanting to own your hard-paid-for kit and whatever you decide to put on it, but have long since gone beyond the pale in doing it themselves. When they release "must have" phones that "change everything (again)" that can't even be fitted with an after market battery (other than by handing over your device to an apple service centre for a charge, like a good little acolyte), let alone any form of memory expansion etc you have to wonder.

If you don't like Apple, don't buy thir products, there are plenty of other solutions... I would suggest, less elegant solutions

If by less elegant you mean less rigorously controlled by the vendor, I agree.

Since I'm not aware of any non vengeful Gods, I'm sure you can find one to pray to, who will make this happen for you

I'm not that mean. Whilst it wouldn't faze me, I recognise there are people that can't live without their fix of apple hardware and would be devastated by it.

[Karlos]

Sometimes I wish people looked past the fact that tablets aren't simply for doing computer stuff and realise that they are used for so many other things that neither a desktop nor laptop nor phone will do.

Please, feel free to enlighten me. What is it that a pad does that neither a notebook nor a good smartphone will do?

As far as I can see, the iPad, for example, is simply a physically larger version of the iPod touch. I would have said the iPhone, but as it's not actually a phone, I didn't.

It's just too big to be genuinely portable (I see people with regular seats struggling with then on the train every morning without fail, only those at table seats have a comfortable experience) in the way a phone is, and just too isolated/unexpandable to be a replacement for a notebook.

[Karlos]

You sill have to root it to make it usable.....  

Both Android and iOs lock down the tablet.

Correction: the vendor locks down the tablet. Android itself doesn't place any deliberate restrictions on what can be done on the hardware.

[Karlos]

When I bought the MBP I was told by Apple that OSX was UNIX.

Thus I expected it to behave like UNIX. This has turned out not to be the case in many basic areas of operation that are standard across all other UNIX's and clones.

I believe "Epic fail" is the correct meme here.

OSX is based on UNIX in the same way "Escape from Colditz" is based on a true story. There's a kernel (arf arf) of truth in there, but the rest has become unrecognisable. For example, a genuinely UNIX-like OS installation generally isn't hacked in under two minutes*

*especially not by exploiting a vulnerability in what should be a user-space application :lol:

[Karlos]

That's the thing though, Apple don't claim it is "based on UNIX", they claim it *IS* UNIX.

They also claimed the iPhone 4 "Changes everything, again."

Strange, because I noticed on the day of release, the vast majority of things I regularly encounter seemed just the same as the day before.

Unless they are now taking credit for entropy.

[Karlos]

It meets the spec...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/08/mac-os-x-leopard-receives-unix-03-certification.ars

/shrug

Pity the criteria doesn't seem to include any guarantee of quality of implementation

[Karlos]

OSX is fine until one wants to do real work (Work that involves typing) with it and then it falls on it's arse.

Buh... typing is from the "PC era of keyboards and mice"... You're so yesterday, man.

Personally, I'm waiting for apple to introduce a totally language-independent and text-free user interface next, since text is from the "era of ink and papyrus". An interface driven entirely by thought, since by then, touchscreen interfaces will also be from some previous era that required physical movement.