Thanks for that find.:)

I think it's because an e-book reader is the niche that most people were considering purchasing a product to fill. No one really needs a big ipod or a flat screen PC at this point in time (we haven't been shown, yet, why we'd need one), but people have been marketed e-book readers extensively. As such, if you're considering a purchase, it's a natural comparison to make.

For example: "Well, I've been thinking about getting one of those e-book readers... and now Apple has this thing out that looks like I can do that... plus I can do a bunch of other stuff." For people who were considering an e-book reader, the "bunch of other stuff" is just icing. Of course, what they don't realize is that the "bunch of other stuff" is actually the cake.

:clap: well put.....pretty much sums up exactly what the iPad is & what is means to the eReader's market.

Rep fo sho

On top of that, you are not even bothering to comment on anything else t he article said. No Flash, really? Needing adapters to connect devices to it, hell needing a special adapter to connect USB to it? F'ing Really?

On top of all that, I still stand on this

No Multitasking
This is a backbreaker. If this is supposed to be a replacement for netbooks, how can it possibly not have multitasking? Are you saying I can't listen to Pandora while writing a document? I can't have my Twitter app open at the same time as my browser? I can't have AIM open at the same time as my email? Are you kidding me? This alone guarantees that I will not buy this product.

If this is true, then this device fails.

The more I think about it, I think this could be a cool device. I'd use it as a photo frame when not in use, and when i'm ready to use it, pick it up, and it is now a magazine, a web browser, a book, a newspaper, or digital pr0n delivery device.

If it just had flash...

You could buy a netbook for less and run any software you wanted. Muti-tasking even.

Pretty solid man. I agree 100%

Man... that article is a piece of shit. And I'm not sure what the deal is, but the link you provided is for a different article than the one above. And amusingly, the article from the link you posted actually criticizes Apple for this move.

Regardless, the article is a reeruned rant that is full of incorrect info and hypocritical criticisms.

Let me point out a few:

Couple things wrong here. First, Flash isn't "content". It's a free product that simply helps you view more content. Second, Apple wouldn't be providing access through another company's platform. It would be allowing additional content through their own platform. There's no missed profit. Apple loses nothing by doing so. They don't sell a "Flash competitor" app that does what Flash does.

"Bag of hurt"? WTF? I've been running Flash on my iPhone for close to a year. Many many people have. It runs smoothly, performance has never been anything close to an issue. I've tested this on every version of the iPhone.

Simply not true. And Apple's engineers most certainly did not "go out of their way to create a new mechanism for running plugins" due to Flash. That change had nothing to do with Flash. They made that change because their Safari plugin support sucked overall and was miles behind other browsers in that regard. Safari is playing catch-up. And how logical is it to think that Apple "went out of their way" to redesign Safari to work better with a specific plugin that they refuse to allow on many of their devices? Yeah, makes perfect sense huh?

OK, everybody else will just have to conform to Apple's method of publishing and consuming content.

Wait... check that, it's a bad idea to let one company control the publishing and consuming of content....

And yeah, we can't wait until Apple has a stranglehold over video and gaming content. :doh!: Did I mention the App Store?

That's just awful.

Yeah, it can be a digital picture frame too :)

I've been thinking about this quite a bit. I guess I'm starting to come around to the fact that the potential for the iPad doesn't lie in what we saw on Wednesday, the potential lies in the minds of the developers.

I'm starting to think the iPad will be huge because it's potential lies in the experience you'll get from the newspapers, magazines, games, etc. I think we're going to see some really cool stuff developed for this. Just gaming alone could be huge.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. But based on the OS that it's using, I don't see anything fantastic comming out of the gamming world for this. Sure, Majong will look fantastic, but I don't see playing Dragon Age on this device anytime in the near future.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment....2&d=1264793612

LOL

:hmmm:

<object width="512" height="328" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" id="ordie_player_f7a03edbd7"><param name="movie" value="http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="key=f7a03edbd7" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed width="512" height="328" flashvars="key=f7a03edbd7" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" src="http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf" name="ordie_player_f7a03edbd7" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object><div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:512px;"><a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f7a03edbd7/pee-wee-gets-an-ipad" title="from Pee-wee Herman and Eric Appel">Pee-wee Gets An iPad!</a> from <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/peewee_herman">Pee-wee Herman</a></div>

Pee Wee gets an iPad early? WTF Steve?

They must have met in the theater.

ROFL

Or in the theater's bathroom? Steve "Shoe-Tapper" Jobs?

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Another apple mocking...

so you saying ...
hehe :evil:

you guys need to stop bumping this thread up. :cuss:

i am already weak ... i'm trying to resist buying anything until the asus comes out.

stop torturing me!!!! :grovel:




:p

I'm getting one. Join me on the dark side, son! :evil:

:Rader:

ROFL

don't be a fool Laz. Wait for the bugs to get worked out and save money for the price drop. I know you can do it.

Me and the wife already had that talk.:D

keep talking ...


you know the price is bloated as heck, they can't really be much more expensive to make than a gameboy DS or something and those go for $129 on sale. A PSP 3000 goes for $169.

:shake:

ereaders are a ripoff tbh

299 is my price. When it hits that, I'll be on board. By then I would bet that 3G will be built in and it will have several more features. It baffles me the thing does not have USB.

I still wonder how much of the e-reader prices are the wireless connections through the phone companies that you aren't being charged a monthly fee for, unlike this device where you have to.

i'm sure it doesn't help.

i think amazon has the 3G internet connection throttled way down to make it cheaper.

Zach, John Gruber, et al are correct. Flash is dying. Apple's just accelerating it.

For the last ****ing time, it CAN multitask. It always has been able to. It runs the same OS as the iPhone. They're basically merging, ever so slowly, the desktop and mobile experiences.

I don't think so. For one, even YouTube is killing Flash, though slowly. H.264 adoption, HTML5 convergence. Flash is an old, un-open, proprietary "standard". (Yes, I note the irony of Apple trying to kill that whilst every adjective other than old fits their whole business model, especially the App store's walled garden)

First, you are correct. But you also miss the point I highlighted above. HTML5 is coming - regardless of the BS with the standards committee and whether they'll adopt it or how quickly. Google is attempting to get it into the arena as is Apple. H.264 fits with every major browser except Firefox, and only because Firefox wants everyone to go with Ogg, which isn't going to happen anyway. H.264 isn't as closed off as Firefox claims.

Second, you're absolutely correct. Apple isn't making any money off of their quicktime plugin playing internet media. But that IS their platform. Well, technically, H.264 would be the platform and it's not theirs. Anyone can use it.

I can't comment on the performance, but bag of hurt is what Jobs used. Not for flash but blu-ray. And it shows in his stance once again re iPad vs Flash.

Anyway, flash on a desktop is utterly annoying, ridiculous, and completely closed-off. Click2flash on safari is one of my new favorite plugins. I wish flash would die on the desktop experience too.

Flash is the older brother of Silverlight and I freaking cannot stand Silverlight. They both should be done away with in favor of open standards and HTML5, which is gaining momentum feature-wise every day.

I think you're completely wrong here. I'm going to venture a guess that updating a safari plugin for flash would have taken less time - even with a complete rewrite - than their workaround.

They did go out of their way to simply work around flash and Youtube. The whole YouTube app is evidence of this.


That's not the point he was making and you know it. Per Apple's business model - whether you like it or not - they want to protect it. iTunes store and the App store are doing just fine. In fact, they're cash cows. Why would you want to slaughter them?

No one is saying you have to conform to them. Look at Amazon MP3. It took off when they came into the market. At least for the nerds who know what DRM is. [Ironically, they took off for the lack of DRM yet Amazon incidentally uses massive DRM on all books.]

Except that they don't and won't.

I agree with your point and sentiment, but once again, you're wrong. They won't be the only App Store and they won't be the only video-gaming source. They haven't been and will continue NOT to be.

Yep.

Dunno. e-ink might cost more than you think?

As you point out, while not "multitasking" the iPhone and Touch accomplish the same feat in their own way. If I'm on this board, and someone posts a YouTube video, I click on it and it opens the YouTube app and plays it, and when I close it I'm right back on this board where I was.

Precisely. It is multitasking just in a different conceptual form. Now, that said, you cannot stream Pandora while surfing the web. I think if Apple approved background processes for media/social apps, it might work. Though, they seem pretty dedicated to push even though it doesn't work with music or the like.

Screens Pixel Qi 3Qi Magic E-Paper and High-Res LCD Dual Display Becomes Real Next Month

By Matt Buchanan on April 24, 2009 at 1:29 AM
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...xolaptop20.jpg
The display technology Pixel Qi has been promising is revolutionary: A high-res colour LCD and low-power, reflective reader mode better than E-ink. For dirt cheap. And it’s coming next month.
<!-- Gawker Tags/Categories: pixel power, ereader, ereaders, mary jou jepsen, netbooks, olpc, pixel qi, pixel qi 3qi, pixelqi, reader -->

If you recall, PixelQi’s founder, Mary Lou Jepsen, is the brains behind the OLPC’s breakthrough reflective screen, and an evangelist for the idea that the future of the computer is in displays. When we talked to her about the problems with e-readers, she predicted that LCD would overtake electrophoretic display technology—aka E-ink—by 2010.


The idea isn’t crazy if Pixel Qi’s displays match the hype: One screen that delivers a high-res, colour LCD for normal computer stuff; an e-paper mode that’s even more readable than e-ink; and a super low-power black-and-white mode. And is cheap to make and advance, since it’s fabricated in standard LCD factories. It makes the possibility of a single tablet computer that really can do everything that much more possible.
And we’ll get to see the first one, 3Qi, next month. Sure, it’s just a stupid screen, but I’m excited.

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Finally, I hear a peep about that. It's been rumored for forever. I'll wait and see if it lives up to the hype.

Bye-bye Kindle, E-reader Screens Coming for Netbooks

Dan Nystedt and Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Netbook makers will soon play a larger role in the e-reader market if start-up Pixel Qi has anything to say about it.

http://images.pcworld.com/news/graph...inline_180.jpg

The company, founded by former One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, will show off engineering samples of its first screen product at Computex Taipei 2009 next week, and IDG News Service was able to catch a first look on Friday.

The first Pixel Qi product, called 3qi, is a 10.1-inch netbook screen designed to work in three modes: a black-and-white e-ink mode for reading text documents and e-books, and two color modes, designed for use indoors or in bright sunlight, that are more suitable for Web surfing and video playback.

E-ink mode extends battery life by shutting off the backlight, and is intended for reading e-books, documents, Web sites or blogs and other text-based material.

The screens should be in netbooks and on store shelves by the end of this year, said Jepsen. Giving netbooks new screens capable of making them e-readers could make them compelling holiday presents, for price and functionality alone.

E-reader makers have reason to fear such innovation because people will be able to buy devices with more functions for about the same price. The latest Kindle, a stand-alone e-reader, costs US$359 according to Amazon.com, while some of the world's most popular netbooks with 10-inch screens, Asustek's Eee PC 1000HE and Acer's Aspire One AOD150-1165, are similarly priced.

New netbooks designed to include e-reader functions will likely have displays that can swivel around to cover the keyboard, a tablet mode good for an e-book reader, said John Ryan, chief operating officer at Pixel Qi.

Beyond the screen, netbook users will need e-reader software, which is already available from several companies, including Adobe Digital Editions, Microsoft Reader, Times Reader made from Adobe Air and even Kindle software made for other devices, such as the iPhone.

Power consumption is another issue Pixel Qi tackled in its 3qi screens.

"What you're looking at is a screen that's entirely reflective," said Ryan, at Pixel Qi's temporary office in Taipei. "It's just running like e-paper so that it's running on the ambient light. It's not fighting the office light , it's not fighting the sunlight. That makes it better for reading but it also cuts the power consumption. The backlight in the screen is typically the largest power drain in any notebook computer."

Battery life is vital in mobile devices such as netbooks. Once Pixel Qi screens are more widely adopted in the industry, the company plans to start working more closely with laptop and netbook designers on ways to lower power drain in the overall system, not just the screen.

The next major hurdle for Pixel Qi is finding large customers for its new 3qi screens.

The screens will cost a little more than conventional LCD screens at first, but costs will go down as production volume picks up, said Jepsen. Pixel Qi designed its screens around the most common technology and production line processes of the day, TFT-LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display) technology.

The company did not say which manufacturers it is working with, but there are several in Taiwan, including AU Optronics, Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Chunghwa Picture Tubes.

One bonus for Pixel Qi is that the global recession has hurt LCD demand, freeing up production lines for its new display.

But that's about the only benefit from this recession.

"People read the news everyday and this has been pretty bad, and so convincing people to take risks during that time was darn hard," said Jepsen. "Venture capital dried up so of course we were trying to get funding during all of that, but we did it."

Here you go Flash peeps:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...es-steve-jobs/

If you can't run AIM and a browser at the same time, or listen to pandora and read a book at the same time that means NO ****ING MULTI-TASKING. I'm sorry man. That's how it is.

Also, I have not heard of flash dieing at all, but lets just say that it is. It wont be dead by time this comes out, and a shit ton of web pages use flash. You will have gaping holes in your browsing expierence. Sounds pretty fail to me

And for anyone that thinks that apple is excelerating anything on a 3rd party software development or demise with thier market share vs windows market share, you are severly mistaken.

One of the things it can do, that apple wanted to get into the area of competiting with and that is downloading books, mags and such so ie, Kindle.

But yea, that's about it. They could have done more.

I really hope they get flash video adapt for it, I hate not having that for my iphone.

Multi-tasking means doing multiple tasks at the same time. If you can listen to Apple's music player while browsing the web or listen to it while tweeting, you're MULTITASKING. It doesn't matter WHAT apps you're using.

The only difference here is what is allowed to multitask. Third party apps aren't. So, please, stop talking out of your ass.

Gaping holes? Like what? Hulu? Please cite these "fails". So far, Farmville and Hulu are the two examples I've seen.

Accelerating no flash on the mobile market? Hell yes they are. Flash doesn't matter whether it's Windows or OSX or linux. Flash is being phased out by the internet. HTML5 is phasing it out. If you don't see this, you aren't paying attention. Granted, it's just beginning.

Flash ain't coming any time soon, buddy. Jailbreak it or else join the campaign to rid the internet of flash. Or, alternatively, don't support Apple by buying their flashless devices.

The ability to multitask less than 1% of the available iPhone apps is really just the same as no multitasking as far as I'm concerned. There are 2 billion third party iPhone apps. Are you really content with running that iPod app in the background when there are 2 billion other apps that you can't? Multitasking third party apps is the whole point. That's what I want to multitask the most. And you can get a jailbreak-only app called Backgrounder, that will actually let you run any third party app in the background. With that, the battery life really isn't much worse. Which means that the device can handle it, Apple just didn't want to do it.

And you may think Flash is being phased out, but it's still going to be around for a long time. Along with Hulu, you also can't view webpages from ESPN, Disney, Miniclip, JibJab, or Kongregate, just to name a few popular ones. By the time HTML5 actually catches on and is viable for the majority of websites, the iPad will be old news. It's not like any websites are going to make an overnight switch to HTML5.

Comments in red.

Flash bandwidth isn't really any worse than any other streaming software. It wouldn't cause any additional network load. Android, Windows Mobile, and the Palm webOS all have Flash players and have for some time, and you don't hear any problems with that.

Interesting. I wonder how it would fair on AT&T's network with all the iPhones?

Thought this was interesting as well.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358590,00.asp


Number 2 isn't another reference to no multi-tasking is it? I mean, I could be wrong, but thats what it looks like to me.

Also, whats up with #39? No Java on the iPad either? Good thing java isn't really that relevant either.

To be honest, the majority of that list sucks. The author makes a few good points, but most of those points are BS.

Saying a netbook can be "hackintoshed" is enough to invalidate the list. That's an absurd point. And while possible on a select few netbooks, doing so would be totally pointless.

Gaming on a netbook? JFC....

Your point about multitasking stands, but that list is shite...

LOL.... Type "Steve Jobs is" in the google search field....

I think the point is that there are options on netbooks. Why one would choose to excercise these options, no clue, but at least they are there. This, opposed to the iPad, where you can use it what and how apple tells you that you can and thats it.

Steve Jobs is my new bicycle, awesome.

I like this perspective:
http://salon.com/technology/the_giga...vil/index.html

Apple and the iPad: Beyond Good and Evil
BY MATHEW INGRAM



As often happens when Apple releases a new product, the conversation around the iPad has quickly changed from “Oooh, I want one!” and discussions of what arcane features it’s lacking into a debate over the eternal question of good vs. evil — or rather, open vs. closed, which in the tech community amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Although many have hinted at or danced around the issue — among them Twitter engineer Alex Payne in a widely read post and Annalee Newitz in a post/polemic at the io9 blog — the first person that I know of who flatly posed the question in good vs. evil terms was Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, with a post entitled “Is Apple Evil?” Swartz’s point is that however seductive the iPad might seem, the essence of it is evil, because it involves Apple controlling everything — not just the locked-down platform, but every piece of content that comes to users through that platform. As Swartz writes:

“That’s not to say the iPad won’t sell, or that I don’t want one. The scariest thing is that I think it probably will. It’s clear that Apple plans for the iPhone OS to be the future of its product line. And that’s scary because the iPhone OS is designed for Apple’s total control.”
Swartz says the only reason he can see for pursuing such a goal is Steve Jobs’ “megalomaniacal need for control.” After declaring himself to be a huge Apple fan, and saying he would buy an iPad right now if he could, he says that despite all that, “for the first time, I’ve got a real sinking feeling in my stomach.”

Payne, meanwhile, declared himself “disturbed” after watching the launch, because the product looked to him like “an attractive, thoughtfully designed, deeply cynical thing.” As he explains:

“The iPad is competing with full-fledged (if small and ugly) computers capable of running arbitrary programs and operating systems. Play all the category games you want, but the iPad is a personal computer. Apple has decided that openness is not a quality that’s necessary in a personal computer. That’s disturbing.”
Payne says he’s concerned that because the iPad is meant primarily for consumption, and because the platform is so closed and controlled, the device could actually usher in the “end of the hacker era” in digital history. The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us, he says, “is both seductive and dystopian.”

Newitz says Apple’s control over the device and everything in it will return the computer world to a time of “televisions and strip malls.” Because the iPad is merely a media consumption device, rather than something that can be modified or used to create much content, Newitz says it has “all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of computers.”

“I know a lot of otherwise-savvy consumers and hackers who are already drooling over the iPad and putting in their orders. They hate the idea of a restricted device, but they love the shiny-shiny. I’m not saying that they should deprive themselves of this pretty new toy. What I am saying is that this toy represents a crappy, pathetic future.”
Evil, megalomaniacal, deeply cynical, the harbinger of a crappy and pathetic future (the Free Software Foundation calls the iPad “bad for freedom”) — none of this is anything Steve Jobs hasn’t heard before (for the good side of things, see Joe Hewitt’s post.) Similar criticisms have been leveled against the iPod and iTunes for years (Chris Dixon of Hunch deals with the quasi-religious open vs. closed question here, and says he would like Apple to remain closed). But is all of this heavy breathing over openness and creativity and the end of the hacker culture really something we need to be worried about? Hardly.

The reality is that hackers will continue to break open and get root access to things, installing workarounds and reconfiguring whatever they wish — just as they have with the iPhone. If anything, it will make them smarter because they’ll have to try harder. And even Apple isn’t immune to the marketplace: The entire app store evolved because of market demands, and the open web will continue to put pressure on the company to be more open (the advent of app-like sites through HTML5 — which has allowed Google Voice to appear on the iPhone — will likely hasten that process).

If anything, the concern about Apple somehow killing our creativity or our open future give Steve Jobs and Apple far more credit for revolutionizing or impeding the evolution of computing than they likely deserve. It’s a little like conspiracy theorists assuming that the CIA and the FBI and the NSA and even more shadowy organizations are hard at work altering the very fabric of society to their own nefarious ends.

The reality, of course, is that most of those agencies couldn’t find their butts with both hands, and have a hard time even battling a cyber attack now and then, let alone planning some huge, ultra-secret conspiracy.

That’s not to say Apple isn’t a very smart company, or that its products aren’t influential — they are, in many cases far more influential than their sales would indicate. But to assume that just because the iPad runs on a locked-down phone OS or has an iTunes-style content platform that the foundation of our entire digital culture is at risk seems a bit much.

Yeah, not to mention the broad generalities about other netbooks. They don't ALL have webcams and card readers, though a lot do.

The point is, if that is something that you want, its available. The iPad, nope, no how, no way, can't do it.

I mean, you could always go buy a web cam...and then the adapters for the USB cable that the iPad can use. :spock:

I like the thing but until it has a card reader slot and a usb port it is a no go. It's still just a large iPod Touch right now. I already have one of those.

Again, multitasking IS possible. It just isn't on 3rd party apps. And that's what people want.

Again, I'm guessing that they will unveil multitasking or their version of it in OS 4.0. If not, I'd begin to think their stance on multitasking is the same as flash - you don't need it. I'd disagree with that and cite media and social apps as a huge hole in that thinking, but it's their product nonetheless.

And, yes, that's a shitty article. FTR, I think netbooks are dumb. I also don't think this is aiming for the netbook market, really.

Apple's always been that way. That's why they haven't licensed their OS. They keep everything tightly integrated which avoids BSoD or things of that nature. Everything runs how it should.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. But articles like the one you posted miss the point.

It's funny that Apple would get crap for their control when they were pretty much the ones pioneering the whole webcam on every PC and laptop. Or when they pioneered the mouse.




ALSO, Jobs said that their ebook prices will match Amazon's.

Daniel Tosh gets an iPad.

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I just don't understand people that do that crap.

I don't get it. If you don't want it, don't buy it. I will not buy something w/o card readers or usb ports, but I bet it has them in the future.

Apple keeps everything closed...yes. Do their products do what they say, and not f-up constantly? Yes.

I don't get why people want USB ports. I get expandable memory ports. But USB?

Flash drives?

accessibility ... people want to be able to access it when and how they choose.

Eh, if it had the SD slot, it wouldn't matter, really. Even so, what would you want to get off the flash drive? Media wouldn't play unless they allowed VLC to port a tablet version...

I'd agree with that in theory but what would you want to do with a USB port. I mean people complained the Macbook Air had only ONE USB port...

Flash drives, external input devices, printers, digital cameras, cell phones, etc. Yeah, Apple probably doesn't want to deal with any of that, but it's a definite drawback compared to other netbooks.

I still don't see the point of flash drives yet. As for external input devices, bluetooth isn't enough? Printers are going wifi/bluetooth almost standard now. Digital cameras use SD cards so that would fit under my "I'll grant SD card slot" and cell phones I'm not sure why you'd want it, unless tethering and not paying for their cheap data plans (which would be less than tethering would run you.)

I'm not defending Apple's closedness - God no. But still, I fail to see the USB aspect of it.

You give people what they want whether it makes sense or not.

People like to have a USB port on their devices so they can just hot swap connect it to any other device they want.

Because not every computer has an SD card input, so if I want to take the pictures off of my Mom's computer it would be easier to do with a thumb drive. Not to mention keyboard's and lot's of people don't yet have wireless printers.

Bluetooth is coming along, sure, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone predicting that USB is going to be killed off any time soon. It's the most flexible connecting technology that there's ever been, and that doesn't look to change any time soon.

Again, I'm not saying that it's a completely damning thing that the iPad doesn't have them. Just that it's surprising that they didn't given all of the possibilities it would add.

I'm not saying USB will die. Though Apple has been working on a USB replacement....

Now, it's the bold I still haven't been convinced on. I don't see how a USB port will do much for the device.

is the replacement gonna be ready in the next 6 months? Then it's really irrelevant.

USB = convenience

i just don't know how much clearer it can be said ... if you want to upload/download something to a device then USB is the most convenient.

I'd agree with you if we were talking about plugging the device into the computer. In that case, it effectively has a USB port since it connects via USB.

I just can't see anyone uploading or downloading something on the go from a flash drive. A) when do you think you'd do it B) what would you do it with (I conceded with media, but I don't think they'll allow a VLC player app) and C) why couldn't you just email it or transfer it wirelessly.

A more interesting prospect than USB is whether Apple will employ the technology they have in the Air that allows taking over of a computer's disc drive. That would allow someone to watch movies over it, transfer files, or potentially, install things.

How the hell am I supposed to charge my iPhone with my iPad?

Dammit Steve!

I was waiting for people to claim hooking up an external drive. Except then they'd complain about battery life...

Mac doesnt let you do that. They only let you use it the way they want you to use it.

Also, forgot to mention, the iPad DOES have a USB port. Via attachment. Which, as I argue, it should be. What shouldn't be is any removable memory port (SD card, specifically)

ROFL

That's why I have Perian....

Whoops, there goes your argument.

you are basically saying YOU wouldn't use the USB, but everyone is not you.

example ...

you are going on a vacation to see grandma petunia with the kids. You want to read some on the trip but don't want to carry a bunch of books with you so you just take the digital version on the apple tablet. You are packing and at the last minute you forgot about all those pictures you took of the kids at Disneyland you wanted to show grandma. Dam ... Grandma Petunia is 105 years old and won't be able to see that small little screen on a phone or camera and you don't have time to print them out. So you'll just grab a USB thumbnail drive and stick in into the USB port on the Apple tablet and use the tablet to show grandma the pictures. The Apple tablet with serve 2 purposes on the trip!!! :)

oh wait ...... the asshats at apple didn't put a simple USB port on the tablet.

Sorry grandma, you'll be dead before we get a chance to come up to see you again ... you can't see the Disneyland pictures.

Thanks Apple for letting my grandma die weeping because she didn't get to see her grand kids at disneyland.



so Mr. Irish hawk ... is this enough specific information for you to understand how somebody else would want usb drive on the apple tablet?

And there are rumors that the usb attachment will be limited. I'm surprised nobody every had anything you wanted to copy off of a flash drive.

who's trying to argue beside you

you want to know why some people would want a USB port ... i gave you a reason. Just because it's not enough information to meet your debate argument standard is irrelevant.

Apple meet customer
customer wants a USB port because it makes them feel good about themselves
so give them a fracking USB port

except for what I quoted and commented on was about USB ports, and the lack there of on the iPad.

I'm sorry IJH, this thing is a PoS. I said it before and will say it again, Apple could have knocked it out of the park with this device, instead they half-assed a shitty open faced netbook.

Great, now I feel bad for laughing at your Grandmothers pain.

Honestly man, this is the most reeruned argument i have ever heard.

Example:

I have 3.5 GB's of photo's on my PC that I would like to show on my new $400 Picture Viewer (iPad). I know, I will just throw them on a USB Jump Drive and trans.....ohhhh....wait.

****ing LAME.