The demos show that the new cover can be configured so that it gives the ipad a slight tilt, making it more easy/comfortable to use the onscreen keyboard. I don’t know how well that will work, ultimately, though.
I have seen these things, my students bring them to class. I have yet to find a reason to get one.
No, it’s people explaining to you that they don’t want those things - or, at least, put them at as high a priority as you do.
I’d like Flash, but I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about USB. I don’t want to connect my fridge to it!
I want to connect my camera to it, after all aren’t Apples the greatest most amazing graphics machines ever made?
So I have to buy a special kit. Remind me why Jobs is better than Bill Gates?
Because Apple products rarely crash, for one thing.
On topic: I’m very, very tempted by the iPad 2, but I have other things to spend money on right now, so I’ll have to stick with my first-gen iPad. Nice first-world problem there, right?
Regarding the lack of USB… meh. I use USB all the time for connecting peripherals to my laptop and desktop, but I don’t want peripherals on my iPad. And I don’t use USB sticks to transfer data, I use the Internet. Dropbox is a wonderful thing (and free).
While it’s certainly attractive I find it has the same problem that the first one had for me. It’s underpowered and undermemoried. At 64G and 1Ghz there’s just not enough oomph there for what I’d want.
I could easily commit to a tablet machine. But I want one that functions as a real computer and not a media station. My laptop (a 2 year old Dell) does that and holds over 200GB of media (in iTunes, ironically). At some point one of these will get to the point of being able to handle the media as well as some of the heavier, database intensive stuff I need to do on a day-to-day basis. But it’s not there yet.
Well mark me down as a first gen owner who is upgrading. Honestly though the major driver for that is the desire to pass the iPad on to my kids rather than any compelling feature on the iPad2. I do love the look of the new covers and the thinner profile. The faster processer is nice but I haven’t noticed any slowdowns on the original so it’s definitely ahead of the curve on power for me already. Thinner and lighter is great although I’m not complaining about the weight or thickness right now either.
I will say that my biggest complaint about using it is dealing with iTunes. I don’t know if it’s just my configuration but it’s prone to long pauses where I can’t click on anything let alone update anything.
Ditto. Love my iPad.
I think the biggest point of contention is over what the iPad actually is. People are saying they wont get one because it doesn’t have USB ports, a keyboard, a powerful enough processor, etc.
Apple already makes a product that has all of those things, as do most other computer manufacturers. They’re called Laptops. Tablets are not them. There are hybrid devices (I own one, an HP Touchsmart tx2z – it’s awful), but those are not iPads.
iPads are designed to do a set of functions extremely well, but to do them in a manner that’s somewhat restricted to ensure a positive user experience. You can jailbreak the device, which doesn’t violate your warranty unless you physically damage it in the process (overheating, etc), and you can do whatever you want on it (including use hacked USB drives/drivers), the problems you encounter on the way to doing that, though, are numerous.
Battery life suffers, stability suffers, etc. If you want those functionalities out of a portable or ultraportable device, purchase a macbook air/pro, dell/sony laptop, etc.
On the other hand, if your goal is simply to buy a device you can read on, get good battery life out of, watch some TV, play on facebook and toss in a bag to take on a picnic… the iPad is going to make those devices look like last weeks news.
Sure, the Motorola Xoom is close, but the added features don’t necessarily equate to added functionality. Spec wise, the Xoom and iPad 2 are close to one and other, but the real difference isn’t storage space, it’s cost. If a company could make a 99 dollar tablet with less features than an iPad, as long as it worked some of the time it’d be the only competition to the iPad.
The port is the functionality. Look, Apple has absolutely no problem with you connecting any USB device to the iPad. They just want you to pay 30 bucks to do it and to use their adapter. I’m pretty sure that the OS is a stripped down version of the one that runs all Macs, so I don’t see why it should have driver issues. At this point, virtually every device that connects by USB is plug and play.
I mean, if I am with a friend and we want to share photos from our trip, how exactly am I supposed to get them onto the iPad?
If I want to give someone some files from my iPad, how am I supposed to do that?
If I want to charge my peripherals, how do I do that?
Apple recognizes that people want to do this, which is why they support the USB protocol and sell an adapter. They just don’t want to put it on the iPad for what ever reason.
I’m pretty sure Apple’s connector isn’t an open thing either. I assume they have it patented and you have to pay them a royalty to use it.
I won’t. The premium for the larger-memory models is absurd (and the absence of standard USB and SD ports is clearly intended to prevent users from supplementing the memory of the base model at a more reasonable price).
You can’t charge your peripherals from the iPad through the USB port anyway, the battery doesn’t hold sufficient charge to power the device AND charge something.
It also doesn’t support “plug and play” for almost anything (including keyboards). The reason most things are plug and play is because, and this is kind of cool… the drivers are already installed on your computer, or the USB device contains an identifier so your computer can download the drivers quickly.
The reason Apple didn’t include the port is because of basically what you just said. The port is not the functionality. The port is just a hole. A form without function. When you add drivers (which take up a lot of coding time, and risk stability, among other things), you add complexity, and you raise cost, all while not actually adding any real value to the device.
Many people who decry apple (and people who defend them as fanboys) don’t care about the USB port, they don’t like it doesn’t have a USB port, but that’s the rallying point. In reality, including a USB port would just create misconceptions about what the device is, and what it does.
Rumors have it that the iPad3 will have micro-usb connectivity, because the EU has rules about proprietary connectors. No clue if that’s true or not, but the rumor is floating around.
**I mean, if I am with a friend and we want to share photos from our trip, how exactly am I supposed to get them onto the iPad? **
Aren’t there bluetooth SD cards? What device are his photos on? Complaining that “it won’t do every single thing I can possibly comprehend” isn’t much of a valid complaint.
If I want to give someone some files from my iPad, how am I supposed to do that? E-mail? Bluetooth?
If I want to charge my peripherals, how do I do that? I’m not aware of any peripherals that charge other peripherals. How do you normally charge your peripherals?
The problem is that people that want to do nothing but point out non-flaws are trying to insist that the ipad is a full-on computer, when it’s more of a peripheral than a stand-alone. If that doesn’t meet your needs, don’t get one - but stop trying to pretend and insist the ipad is something it isn’t.
Apple’s proprietary 30 pin connector includes a set of USB pinouts so functionally it does have a USB port. They could literally give every iPad buyer a little adapter that’s USB A female on one side and a proprietary 30-pin connector with only the USB pins connected and it’d basically be a USB port.
But it wouldn’t add any functionality at all because just having 4 little contacts that happen to have “universal” in the name doesn’t add anything per se to a product. For instance, most android devices I know of that have microUSB ports still are limited to USB OTG because of the internal wiring. Beside that, the software that is bound to that port usually only allows the device to be seen as client for USB storage, USB debug bridge, USB sharing, so connecting any random USB device won’t be seen by any other tablet OS either. The only well known device that I’ve seen to allow more options on the micro USB port is the Archos, and I’ve heard reports of that not working as robustly as it should either.
So personally, as a manufacturer of USB peripherals, I think all tablets should include better support and better ability to develop drivers, particularly USB Host mode. But to say it’s as simple as quoting the first word in USB or that Apple is the only one with the problem is just completely ignorant.
There are even Wi-Fi SD cards.
These are USB drivers, not video drivers. iOS certainly has stable drivers available. There are valid reasons to omit USB or SD cards: user-experience, aesthetics, price, etc. Apple is very good at creating seamless solutions and USB or an SD card can really make that more difficult to do.
At this point there are tablets coming out with USB ports. Consumers can find out if they are useful or not. One thing that often gets overlooked is that there are many USB modes and many different devices. A device with USB support doesn’t automatically mean that it can interwork with any other USB device.
BTW, here is a decent tablet comparison although it leaves out ports like HDMI, USB, and SD card.
This one is more complete.
That’s not the case in this thread at all. Some people are saying the iPad 2 doesn’t meet their needs because it is missing something that is important to them. That’s perfectly valid in a discussion about iPad 2. No one is being nasty or argumentative. Just as it is valid for other people to say that the iPad 2 works for them because they don’t use those features (or have an alternate way).