New Apple Tablet

[dirk digler]

Cool stuff. On Engadget live right now

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/l...est&refresh=30

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by NewChief

I'm a huge fan of google apps for education. Our district is wasting a shit ton of money on Microsoft Sharepoint for something that could be achieved with minimal cost for free from Google. On top of that, the "open-source" nature of google apps would allow for a much higher level of student interaction with the system. Imagine: all students have their iGoogle homepage set up. Students start developing their own applets for the homepage. Everyone is customizing on their own. People are using reader, shared calendars, and maps in connection with each other. The possibilities would be badass if there was a district move to it. Instead... we're going to be stuck with Sharepoint, and no one is going to know what to do with it.

Yuck! Sharepoint is just awful. You should start a coup! Setup your own Google system with students and see if you can grow it from the outside in!

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Yuck! Sharepoint is just awful. You should start a coup! Setup your own Google system with students and see if you can grow it from the outside in!

My students were doing research papers about chemistry-related topics (I'm an English teacher, but we were partnering with the Chemistry teachers to try to create an interdisciplinary project). I wanted my students to blog on their topic as they researched it. I noticed that every blogging platform besides wordpress (which I use and prefer anyway) was blocked, so I requested that they be unblocked so my students could meaningfully interact with bloggers on other platforms through creation of blogrolls and such. My sysadmin (this is a sysadmin of a school district serving a community of 70,000+ in a college town) tells me that blogs are the "wild wild west of the internet and there is no way I'd let students into that world." Yeah, that's what I deal with.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

maybe not the perfect place for this... but if Google keeps moving in this direction, Android phones/tablets could easily be much better enterprise devices than even blackberry. As a former corporate IT Director, I can't stress enough how badass it would be to have a fleet of phones and tablets that were centrally managed and all using a product that is much much cheaper than anything else. (Google Apps vs Exchange). Google has a ways to go yet in the enterprise space.. but man, this is impressive.

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com...-for-your.html

Microsoft answered... kind of...

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/24/micro...and-android-d/

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by NewChief

My students were doing research papers about chemistry-related topics (I'm an English teacher, but we were partnering with the Chemistry teachers to try to create an interdisciplinary project). I wanted my students to blog on their topic as they researched it. I noticed that every blogging platform besides wordpress (which I use and prefer anyway) was blocked, so I requested that they be unblocked so my students could meaningfully interact with bloggers on other platforms through creation of blogrolls and such. My sysadmin (this is a sysadmin of a school district serving a community of 70,000+ in a college town) tells me that blogs are the "wild wild west of the internet and there is no way I'd let students into that world." Yeah, that's what I deal with.

That's impressively behind the times for someone in IT.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

Microsoft answered... kind of...

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/24/micro...and-android-d/

That is going to be hard to implement as well as Google's.. simply because they won't have the same level of OS integration. I just can't see how an app like that would work that well on a stock Android device much less one with iOS.

My guess is that it will work like crap and cost more money... you never know though.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Dude, it was nowhere close to pretty good.. it was a piece of crap. And didn't you have to hack it to get Boxee on it?

AppleTV was and iTurd and I know a ton of fanbois who bought it and made excuses for it... most of them finally gave up and admitted it was crap in the end.

Well..... unless you jailbreak it and load Plex on it and use it as a Roku alternative....

I know... I know...

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

Well..... unless you jailbreak it and load Plex on it and use it as a Roku alternative....

I know... I know...

Sadly, I don't think GoogleTV is that much better, I have yet to play with it but it certainly doesn't sound that great either. Although they have the right idea of just building it into the TV itself.

[The Rick]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Sadly, I don't think GoogleTV is that much better, I have yet to play with it but it certainly doesn't sound that great either. Although they have the right idea of just building it into the TV itself.

I like the newer Apple TV 2, but I do agree with you here...building the functionality into the TV does make a lot of sense...

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by The Rick

I like the newer Apple TV 2, but I do agree with you here...building the functionality into the TV does make a lot of sense...

I don't know enough about it yet to draw any conclusions.. my comment was just about Apple TV version 1... which sold like crazy at first then everyone realized it was useless and they were just buying it because it was a shiny new Apple iGizmo.

[Silock]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

I don't know enough about it yet to draw any conclusions..

It's still not good enough. It won't be good enough unless they allow you to install apps on it.

[WoodDraw]

I'm a huge Macbook Pro fanboy. I love mine, and anytime I have to go without it I get angry.

I also have a lot of respect for their R&D. Both the cell phone and tablet markets today are defined by Apple's innovation and product design.

I also generally think people that talk shit about Apple are the people everyone wants to punch at parties. "Oh, is that an iPod you have there? Yeah, I refuse to buy them - too commercial. You should check out the new ZR743X - much better product." Yeah, thanks dude.

I also think Apple does an excellent job supporting their products, especially compared with the borderline incompetence from most of the big Android boys. They support for more than one generation, they provide timely upgrades, and their products retain value much more than their Android counterparts.

But you also have to realize it's Apple, and in the mobile realm that means you get what they want to give you, and nothing more.

[RippedmyFlesh]

Originally Posted by Unleash_the_Phury

It also leads to some babying of the machine; though that could just be me, I'm really anal about shit like that.

It's not just you a coworker had one and I sensed his protective nature and didn't bother to ask to play with it. But it looked nice and the video chat with his dad outside at night was great. It felt more like watching someone on tv than a choppy video chat.

[the Talking Can]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Based on what I have seen so far... we have a new clear cut winner in the tablet space...



http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=gHh4q7I8dvWJzhdV

Has all the specs you could want... + a cool docking station that adds a keyboard and extra battery life along with a full sized SD card reader and extra USB ports.

...and most important of all... CHEAP! MSRP for the base model is supposed to be $400

ok it isn't as cheap as it needs to be (<$351) but we are getting there!

First, I want to say that this thread is AWESOME

Chock full of great up-to-date info AND chock full of fanboi vs. fanboi hilarity....

AustinChief, your love of a perfect future which never arrives is kind of touching...you're Morpheus against the Apple Matrix...but i've learned a lot from your posts...

second, this tablet w/ docking station is exactly the kind of thing I'm waiting for....my computer needs are really basic when I boil it down, and I'm willing to wait another year to for the price to drop, the models to be refined, and some competition to arrive...then I'll move my war horse 15inch laptop to a desk to live out it's days as a desktop and move forward with the tablet...

[The_Doctor10]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

6 years? what a strange and arbitrary number...

ok, got one, AppleTV (first version) was pretty turd like.

Six years is only arbitrary because that's when I really started to notice the rivalry between Mac and PC, and the fact that everyone seemed to be ditching their smaller flash MP3 players for iPods.

So in that time, Apple has released 3 OS' that are improvements on the previous one. They're coming out with Lion this summer. They re-invented touch screen technology for the masses. They developed the best-selling individual smartphone on the planet. They re-invented the tablet computer. They've continued to improve their desktop and laptop computers.

And they also released the Apple TV. Something I never really understood, and still don't quite see the point of. Another thing I never understood was the Macbook Air. No disk drive, I'm not sure if there's a USB... its existence still baffles me, since it's not like the Macbook/Macbook Pros are particularly clunky devices.

So while there are some unnecessary/unusual efforts by Apple over that time, there isn't a Windows Vista on its record. I guess that was my point.

[The_Doctor10]

Originally Posted by WoodDraw

I'm a huge Macbook Pro fanboy. I love mine, and anytime I have to go without it I get angry.

I also have a lot of respect for their R&D. Both the cell phone and tablet markets today are defined by Apple's innovation and product design.

I also generally think people that talk shit about Apple are the people everyone wants to punch at parties. "Oh, is that an iPod you have there? Yeah, I refuse to buy them - too commercial. You should check out the new ZR743X - much better product." Yeah, thanks dude.

I also think Apple does an excellent job supporting their products, especially compared with the borderline incompetence from most of the big Android boys. They support for more than one generation, they provide timely upgrades, and their products retain value much more than their Android counterparts.

But you also have to realize it's Apple, and in the mobile realm that means you get what they want to give you, and nothing more.

Capitalism dude