[geeks] iPad - NOT a 'Miss' for me I'm afraid

[nate at portents.com]

> You say Bias, I say Opinion - if you are suprised I shared my opinion,
> my apologies.

Not surprised, just disappointed.  On the scale of conversation quality,
two people just sharing opinions isn't very useful compared to two people
engaged in a rational discussion which attempts to cooperatively build a
framework for evaluating probable values of shared systems of estimation
and prediction.

> Well AND costs twice as much as OR, I was arguing from the point of
> $500 available, sorry you missed that point.

I get that point, and I'm confused why anyone ever makes it.  I think some
pie-in-the-sky desire for a device which singularly displaces one or more
other devices is impractical.

> Yeah, tech used to be expensive.

Which is why it's is so useful when tech is low-maintenance and manageable
these days, because maintaining tech (such as a system running Windows)
can be a significant cost.

> I thought the point of the original post (implied, not directly
> stated, I'll admit) was that this could eliminate the need to carry
> books, and if you aren't carrying books, you wouldn't need a book bag
> - instead you would likely carry a pack designed to carry the iPad,
> something that would resemble a Man Purse IMHO (again, an opinion).

I do not think it is either practical or likely that books will go away
anytime soon.  And during any transitionary period to a more digital-book
educational system, many students will still need to check out books from
their library for a long time, receive handouts, have some paper
notebooks, accessories, etc.  A backpack/messenger bag/sack of some sort
will continue to be used.

> What would an iPad add to a Mac Book for a musician? The original
> assertion was that this would displace other devices, not augment
> them...

Sounds like you don't realize what a boon the iPod has been to musicians,
and doesn't look like you've read someone else's follow-up to this
particular topic in the thread.

(I'm perplexed why people care about this 'displace other devices' so
much, it's not really important unless your aim is to reduce a discussion
into a polarized win/loose scenario...)

> Multiple devices also need to be physically manageable, carrying an
> iPhone, iPad, and a netbook/laptopcould be cumbersome, no?

My iPhone lives in my pocket.  My messenger bag has a notebook section and
has room for an iPad-sized device as well.  I don't think it'd be
cumbersome.

> Libraries across america loan out VHS tapes every day, schools show
> VHS tapes in classes every day, grandparents have shelves of VHS tapes
> for their grandchildren. Sales of VHS tapes/recorders may be
> non-existant, but the devices didn't all disappear when Blockbuster
> went all DVD.

For the customers for whom VHS is still important, there are plenty of
ways they can digitize their old videos and put them in iTunes and sync
them to their iPods/iPads, so there's nothing more that Apple needs to do
really.  They are best off doing that digitizing and editing and archiving
on their computers.

> Woot recently had an Ion VHS -> PC player (tape drive and USB video
> converter in one package) for $29.95, I bought one on a whim (to
> capture old McDonald's VHS tapes to iPod for my young daughter), and
> when I mentioned it to folks at $work, everyone had some level of
> interest in such a device (a VHS tape conversion "appliance", if you
> will, link here: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=11090 )...

Yeah, Ion doing the old 'stick a cheap USB digitizer inside the case of a
cheap analog playback device' product, like their USB turntables.  I
actually care about the quality of my analog sources and digitizers and
will buy used prosumer/progear over some new crap someone like Ion puts
out.  Ion's gear is probably worse quality than if you bought the $14.80
"USB 2.0 Video Grabber with Audio" from monoprice.com and picked up an old
used VCR at a yard sale to do your digitizing.

- Nate