Tom, do you think that the iPad's weak touch screen performance with cat paws is going to affect its sales? I think the effect may be mitigated by the sheer volume of cat-friendly titles, such as the game shown in that video.

Besides, I hear it works great with sausages.

I just love that video. I have to show it to everybody here. And, I am getting an iPad for my cats.

Thanks for post it

That video is great! Our cat would sit and watch me on the laptop and paw at the screen when she was a kitten. But now she's grown up she doesn't even seem to be interested.

We have a big mirror in our living room and if you hold her up to it, she looks round the edges but seems to refuse to actually look into the mirror, very peculiar.

Too cute.

I think our cats would react similarly. When they sit on my lap while I'm using the computer, they frequently spot the mouse cursor and go a little nuts, probably thinking it's a bug.

Certain things on the TV also get them standing up against the TV and swatting at it.

Playing computer games on my TV provided much amusement for one of my cats.


It's a shame my allergy to cats grew to the point I couldn't own one anymore. Same goes for dogs too, something just caused my allergies to shift dramatically over the past few years.

Oh no! That's too bad. I love our cats and we're hoping to get a dog soon.

And I'd forgotten about video games. One of ours loves tracking the hand in the Wii menus

Dreamcast !!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPzbtVc9d9Y

I still have that Dreamcast too, works great even after 11 years now. Still looks decent when paired with the VGA adaptor.

Now for the canine iPad review:

My iPad came in on Friday (a 3G 32gb unit), and I went ahead and subscribed to the data service for one month. I did this mostly because I have a trip next weekend to hand off the WiFi iPad to my grandmother, and because we don't have WiFi up and running in the new studio at work yet. Signing up for the data service was pretty easy, with the iPad asking if I wanted to sign up the first time I opened Safari. It pops up a smaller window to pick a plan, and to provide a credit card number. A little over a minute after completing the form, a new popup indicated everything was activated and ready for use.

Now that I have data access at work for email, and can VPN in to access other resources, the usefulness went up quite a bit. Already, it came in handy quite a few times for coordinating some build issues we were working on later on Friday. Our local IT guy tried out a free remote desktop app on it, and was quickly sold on the idea of using one for remote administration. Overall, once 4.0 comes out with multitasking, an iPad with 3G may be a really good tool for on call admins. While similar could be done with a laptop, the benefit to the iPad will tie into a later point.

Overall, my use of the system has been pretty much media consumption. I tend to watch a TV show before bed, or read, with both activities working decently on the device. AirVideo (warning, may launch iTunes) has been great for watching anything my Mac Pro can see, and it will even trigger wake on demand if the system is asleep. GoodReader is an excellent program for opening PDF, Word, and other common documents. The ability for it to access my iDisk or any other webdav server has come in handy a few times, as it allows me to just keep everything important on my iDisk and access it remotely, instead of worrying about syncing files everywhere.

I've commented on battery life before, but it's worth bringing up again, as it's now becoming clear it's one of the main benefits of the device. It's so power efficient, I really haven't worried about it. Even after using it to play podcasts in the car with the volume at full blast (due to my amplifier dying), decent web and e-mail use at work, along with some game time, I haven't dropped the battery below 60% after one day. Today for example, my battery was at 78% when I came home, after the device sat on 3G all day pulling down e-mail and the screen being on a good portion of my work day. This is why I think it would be a good admin tool. Instead of having to haul around a full laptop, or even a netbook and charger while on call, an iPad could work for dealing with a situation remotely, even if it sat in the trunk of the car for a week unused.

Long term, it will be interesting to see how the device evolves, as better wireless internet comes online, and hopefully better cloud solutions also come out. Google will likely be in the same space soon, so even those against Apple will have similar offerings. It really is a new category, separate from the traditional x86 portable computers with battery life measured in single digit hours and boot times of a full blown desktop OS. I always know that in the morning, I'm seconds away from the web and e-mail, without having to boot a system up, or have power cords on the nightstand to keep a battery charged. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the device, and have been a bit surprised at how well it works for many situations.

Oh, and one amusing use of it that happened today, letting 3 people decide what word to play in Words with Friends while walking over to Starbucks for an afternoon snack.

Oh, and stats wise, Apple announced this today:

1 million units sold (with no breakdown between 3G and WiFi models)
12 million app downloads
1.5 million ebook downloads

Someone on a podcast I was listening to wanted to compare this to sales of the Newton, with the best estimate saying 200,000 were sold over the lifetime. Amazing what a bit of time, the internet, and proper marketing can do.

I can't argue with anything you said, and the iPad looks more and more appealing to me all the time. I just can't afford the cost, and for me, there's simply 0% chance that it can replace my netbook in my business, as I so often need an ethernet jack to troubleshoot networking issues. I have no doubt it could replace netbooks for many people, just not me unfortunately. It would be a nice addition, though.

I definitely think that the 3G device is more appealing as well, though I have concerns about what they allow over the networks. The ABC player, for instance, won't work, and I've heard other video is really downgraded. Can you speak to those issues?

*edit*
Just to be clear, I'm not hating anywhere in this post Like I said, I'm always finding the device more appealing, and clearly I'm being proven wrong about the success of it, though I'm still curious to see long term effects.

Yeah, the iPad or other tablets won't replace a netbook/laptop for everyone. For my type of IT work/support, web access is the #1 need, followed possibly by Remote Desktop (Windows) or SSH (Linux). Physically plugging the iPad into anything isn't a requirement here.

As far as video over 3G, it has to meet certain bitrates (64-440kbit). The initial ABC app didn't support downgrading to that level, but as of yesterday with an update, it now works fine, and looks decent enough to be watchable. Youtube videos tend to look worse, as they appear to be downgrading quite a bit.

The ABC player doesn't work because they have failed to provide alternate, lower-bandwidth streams for fall-over to 3G. It's an ATT requirement and part of the SDK for iPhone (and has been all along) that if you want video over 3G you have to provide lower bandwidth streams.

The Newton sold 200k in five years. The world was a very different place back then, so I wouldn't look much into that. One can also look at how quickly the first million iPads have been sold, 28 days, compared to the first iPhone, 74 (or so) days. But, that iPhone was breaking new ground. The iPad has the iPhone's success to ride on. The same situation you find when you look at Android and sales of other iPhone-like products. It's the iPhone that did the trailblazing to allow those products to achieve the sales they're currently enjoying.

I'm still planning to skip the first generation iPad, but I also still see it as distinctly a third category. It's not a phone or pocketable handheld and it's not a notebook. For some people it can replace one or both of those other devices, but for others it's simply a third device. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Now, the more interesting stat that I haven't seen reported yet... What's the greatest number of slate/pad computers that have ever been sold by a single manufacturer? I'd be surprised if anyone else has ever sold 1 million units in any number of years of product availability. I'd be less surprised, but somewhat surprised nonetheless, if anyone else can introduce anything this year that will sell 1 million units.

Sounds like they really have things down, and that's great. Is the 3G version different in that you don't need a computer to activate it? I think things will get extremely interesting when/if Apple can get the iPad to the point where you don't need to have another computer in the house. For example, if grandma only needs the 3G iPad and no computer/home internet connection, that would be really cool.

Would someone explain a usage scenario for the $15 250MB plan? It seems to me that you couldn't really do anything on that. Furthermore, I wonder how accurate the bandwidth monitor they're using actually is. I remember Leo Laporte getting pretty upset when he was overcharged for international data roaming because AT&T said he went over and his iPhone said he didn't.

Once again, I'm not criticizing Apple here. If anyone, I criticize AT&T and all carriers and ISPs who have bandwidth caps and consistently refuse to give their customers reliable ways to monitor them.

I'd be very surprised if the ratio of $30 plans to $15 plans weren't extremely lopsided toward the former. $30 is actually pretty reasonable. In fact, what annoys me about that is how the carriers gouge you for a USB adapter plan for like $60/month, when the iPad is so targeted towards media consumption. I do wonder, though, if 3G can handle these high bandwidth streams like Youtube effectively. Perhaps I'll wait for the 4G iPad?

I use no where near that amount a month on my iPhone and I wouldn't expect to use dramatically more on a 3G iPad.

The trick is having wifi access in places you spend lots of time. I have wifi at home, use wifi at the companies I work at, use wifi in coffee shops and use wifi when stopped in motorway services. So I don't actually download much on 3G at all.

I'm sure there are people who do use more, but for example when Ars Technica polled iPhone users most people said their data usage was under 250MB/month.

With a USB adapter you can sit there downloading torrents all day, not something you can do with your $30 iPad plan without jailbreaking it to enable tethering.

All the 3G equiped iPhoneOS devices really should have a simple little chart in the usage screen that shows you your last six months usage, kind of shocking that they don't [-]

I've just checked, I downloaded 1GB of data over the cell network since 28th September 2009. So less than 150MB a month.

The 3G iPad still has to activate via iTunes first. I'm not sure of everything that happens during activation, but part of the process is related to generating a certificate used for push notifications. Theoretically they could move this process device side only, and require an internet connection for initial setup. If you buy from the Apple Store, they will offer to activate it before you leave. One interesting thing here is how Apple handles this. When you buy the device, they hand the unopened box to you, walk you over to someone at a computer, then let you open and unwrap it. They make sure you are the one to have the box opening and first hands on experience.

The 3G iPad still has the same limits the iPhone does, in that the iTunes Music Store/App Store won't allow downloads above 20MB unless on WiFi. And with the reduced quality video streams, bandwidth usage won't rival a laptop with a USB adaptor.

As for the 250 MB plan, the device will alert you when 20% and 10% is remaining. It will also cut service off when it hits 0, allowing the user to either buy 250mb more or pay $30 for unlimited for 30 more days. I believe these alerts are based on how AT&T shows usage, so they should be accurate.

There you go, ABC player now allows 3G video streaming:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/03/abc-player-for-ipad-updated-3g-streaming-is-a-go/

Here's a terrific little iPad hack that occupies a niche that would otherwise be filled by a single-purpose/specialty device...

iPad integrated into kitchen cupboard

It would be nice to have a waterproof bluetooth 5-way navigation device mounted to your kitchen counter as well. That way you could actually operate a specific app (with support for that device) with your hands dirty - and then wash the controller.

A perfect example of using an iPad as a dedicated-task device. Of course even though the application can be considered dedicated (built-in) the iPad's OS itself offers a tremendous amount of content variety should you ever want it.

This is why it would otherwise be so easy to deploy 10 or 20 of these things in your personal and/or professional life.

It's the salmonella-y-est!

MacRumors had an interesting post on the new iPad ad, comparing it to the old Newton ad.

Newton:


iPad:

If they run that ad in the UK I think they'll have the ASA down on them over the "all the worlds websites" line. That simply isn't true thanks to idiots out there with 100% Flash sites.

The iPad also can't download files and a lot of sites have downloadable content. So that part of the web is also not accessible. I didn't check for fine print, but there might be some in the commercial. One could also argue that Flash isn't actually the web site, but content hosted on the site. The iPad will chew through the base HTML without an issue. Maybe all-flash sites are also so great that they're "out of this world."

Whats really bugging me about this whole thing is that apart from YouTube, most other sites serving up content without Flash are doing it specifically for the iDevices. How about my desktop?

I like the new ad and I'm sure the similarities between it and the Newton ad will be lost on everyone but those reading about it in blogs. With any luck, and the iPad leading the revolution, maybe competitors can hope that their devices are as popular as the Newton once was. I doubt many of them will be.

That is a joke, right? If you're going to argue that, you could argue the same thing about JPEGs and, for that matter, HTML.

Ah, I miss my Newton. One of these days I'm sure I'll find it in the attic.

You can argue it, but you'd be wrong.

Flash is a completely separately contained run-time environment that effectively runs inside a box, not respecting anything outside it. Not respecting any of the building blocks of the system it's running on, the browser it's running on and the framework that builds the actual pages. No HTML, no CSS. It's just a completely foreign system set within a box operating under its own rules.

It's like setting a TV into a wall along with brick and mortar and windows and doors. It might be cool sometimes, but it's the odd man out.

How do JPEGs respect anything outside them, or the building blocks of the system, or the browser?

HTML is nothing more than content hosted on a web site. Nothing in the HTTP spec says anything about HTML. Nothing in the HTML spec says anything about JPEGs. (Other than as random examples.) Of course, it's perfectly reasonable to say that a "web site" is the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs hosted on an HTTP server. It's also perfectly reasonable to say that it also includes any object intended to render inside the browser.

I said I wouldn't get sucked back into this, but your arguments and analogies are becoming increasingly asinine. I no longer care about the Apple/Adobe thing, not that I think I was ever intentionally defending Adobe, at least as a primary concern.

If I go to, for example, http://www.audemarspiguet.com/, which is Flash-only, and I have no Flash capability, nothing renders (other than a background). Your argument would be "that's not a web site", which is prima facie asinine.

Caleb's analogy with the baseball bat was kind of weak, but you counter it with one that is not only weak, but barely relevant at all. How is formula racing even remotely equivalent to the iPad? Are you trying to say that the iPad is merely a competition ground for developers? (For the record, a closer analogy might be that of a DVD player that disallowed playing of animated content.)