On the iPad

http://al3x.net/2010/01/28/ipad.html

by twampss • 16 years ago

143 112 16 years ago

dschobel6• 16 years ago

Wherever we stand in digital history, the iPad leaves me with the feeling that Apple’s interests and values going forward are deeply divergent with my own.

It's pretty odd to me how people have willingly accepted Apple's closed phone and media player ecosystem without batting an eye-lash, but the iPad is just outrageous as it encroaches on the PC.

Isn't the iPad just a logical continuation of Apple's trajectory of the last decade?

tlack3• 16 years ago

But I think people understand the limits of a phone that means it might have to be closed (after all, phones were closed for 15 years before we started seeing "open" ones), and people saw the crazy copyright battles that went on that lead to a big restriction in music copying freedom. On the other hand, we've had programmable computers in our homes for 30 years.. we aren't ready to give that up.

dschobel6• 16 years ago

I suppose, but from a Stallman-esque strictly engineering point of view, it's all just software running on hardware and the fact that you call one with a 4" display a phone makes everyone accept it being closed but a 10" display crosses the boundary into PC territory and now it's outrageous to be closed.

It strikes me as an arbitrary distinction to make.

ryandvm• 16 years ago

Or maybe we are. That's what Jobs/Apple are betting.

Apple thinks that people have tired of dealing with anti-virus and task managers and package installers and folders and system updates.

Perhaps they're right, there is definitely a segment of the market that just wants a web browser and some rich media. They don't care about multi-tasking or customization.

If the iPad takes off, you can bet that locked down versions of OSX won't be far behind.

Google is headed in a similar direction with ChromeOS.

Apple's vision: "We'll give you an awesome experience, but you're going to pay us a little bit at a time for all of it."

Google's vision: "We'll give you an awesome experience for free, but you're going to tell us everything about you."

dschobel6• 16 years ago

I agree, and I'm not even trying to broach the politics of it being a closed system.

I'm just wondering why lots of very tech savvy people have never minded their ipods, cellphones, gaming consoles, etc, etc, etc being closed.

Maybe we should have been protesting those all along? Otherwise how do you reconcile accepting all of those but rejecting this device?

joe_the_user2• 16 years ago

I agree that iPad is a culmination of Apple's trajectory of the last decade, maybe Steve Job's trajectory for his career.

It's a triumph of creating something entirely designed to meet people immediate needs while not having any rough edges. And extensibility is inherently a rough edge.

But that doesn't change from the negative points the article makes - it illuminates them.

tlack3• 16 years ago

Beware, ranty comment follows:

There's another possibility here. Microsoft succeeded because of their focus on developers and, to some extent, having an open ecosystem as long as it suited their business goals. Forgetting this may be Apple's first slip up.

When OS X came out, tons of amazing apps came out that got many people switching: if Apple turns off those same developers, the platform will weaken.

umtrey• 16 years ago

People didn't switch to the Mac in droves when XCode came out, or when Apple switched to OS X. It took a closed platform - a perfectly cultured, strictly defined environment that was the iPod to start building the halo (and with that, peoples' trust) towards the desktop/laptop Mac.

The iPhone didn't get the buzz or the acclaim because of the App Store - it became thought of as a gift from the heavens! Steve has blessed us with this new way to add our value to the closed product. Watch this happen in a different extent with the iPad - something new will come up that will open it up ever so slightly, adding new features where Apple doesn't have the creative or physical capacity to develop.

orangecat4• 16 years ago

It took a closed platform - a perfectly cultured, strictly defined environment that was the iPod to start building the halo (and with that, peoples' trust) towards the desktop/laptop Mac.

There are many plausible interpretations of history. Mine is that Mac market share took off around the same time as the ascendancy of laptops, when screens and mobile CPUs got to the point where they were no longer hugely inferior to desktops. Mac laptop sales exploded because they're both more aesthetically appealing (which matters more for laptops since other people see them) and more functional (e.g. sleep and wireless actually work reliably).

I also think early alpha geek adoption of OS X helped to a lesser extent, both in terms of the software they created and in recommendations to friends and family. The iPhone/iPad may become like Windows in the 90s: what developers write for during the day to pay the bills, while they do their hacking on platforms that don't frustrate their desires.

joe_the_user2• 16 years ago

I personally feel more optimistic than most commentators concerning what "most people" will want.

I think that a large enough group of people will continue to want an extensible machine that closed systems like the ipad will have trouble seeming like a good deal - a Mac or a PC might a bit harder to use but it does have that one extra program you have to use sometimes.

wvenable• 16 years ago

Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history

I disagree. We're in a time of change now -- very soon we won't be getting any of media in the same old ways. TV will be replaced with digital streaming. Music, for the younger generation, is already almost entirely digital. It's even becoming perfectly reasonable to read books on digital devices now.

However, this digital future is not open to everyone. My parents have a hell of time operating a computer and don't benefit from the latest streaming media technologies. They get their music on CD's. They read books on paper. The general purpose computer has failed them. Why shouldn't Apple fill this gap between the TV and the computer?

I'm sure Apple fans will lament the loss of general purpose computing devices from Apple. But it doesn't mean that the hacker era is dead. It just means that most hackers may have to look somewhere else to find a product that suits them.

_3ex7• 16 years ago

The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us is both seductive and dystopian.

Upon reading that, I was immediately reminded of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

minus the sledge.

bitwize• 16 years ago

There was another article linked to here, said something like Apple was now the face on the screen, not the woman with the hammer.

I think a lot of us recalled that old commercial...

butterfi3• 16 years ago

"Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history"

Perhaps the microwave signals an end to the chef era of cooking history.

ynniv4• 16 years ago

That might be my favorite iPad analogy yet.

Will people please stop calling this the end of computing? If not for me, do it for CoCo [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/23/44346/3789]

dschobel6• 16 years ago

If you write software for a living you have to write for whichever platform the market dictates.

holygoat3• 16 years ago

In a very real way, it did. Fifty or sixty years ago, people prepared food largely from scratch. Now, a large proportion of the population of Western nations prepares food by poking a hole in the plastic cover, closing the door, and hitting "Express".

Similarly, one possible future prompted by the iPad is one where "chefs" (hackers) do food preparation, but most people hit the power button.

Al3x is asserting that this is bad because there's not really much of a path from 'here' to 'there'. You can't get started by running scripts in a shell, or writing AppleScript, or whatever — you get apps from the App Store and that's it.

adriand• 16 years ago

> You can't get started by running scripts in a shell, or writing AppleScript, or whatever — you get apps from the App Store and that's it.

What if you get started by writing HTML and Javascript code into a nice online editor - something like Bespin, or like those many different sites where you can code in all sorts of languages using a web-based front-end - and you get to publish your results to a web page and see the results immediately?

Does it get any easier than that?

Code - publish - save to home screen - "hey dad, check out this application I just made!"

ynniv4• 16 years ago

The microwave let people who didn't want to spend their time cooking do more interesting things. Is their life worse for the wear? Only because food prepared as a frozen dinner is inferior to food prepared by hand. The same is exactly the opposite of software. Software prepared by a professional is almost always of superior quality to a script that Bob wrote in his spare time. Maybe not if Bob is actually very good a programming, which leads into...

This is patently false. The iPad is not a primary computing device, and will not replace a laptop or desktop, which by (current) definition is open to these things. Apple is not holding back the iPad-hosted compiler and shell. There is no iPad-hosted compiler or shell. Additionally, the development environment which does get you from 'here' to 'there' is openly (but not freely) available. You can write and run any application you choose, the same way that Apple does, via the Developer Program.

jstevens854• 16 years ago

Some of those apps might be LOGO or SCRATCH simulators.

jodrellblank2• 16 years ago

I'll link to my comment in another thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1084790

Summary: You also can't get started being a surgeon by taking your pets apart and putting them back together, but people still go through years of medical school and become surgeons.

butterfi3• 16 years ago

True -- most people weren't interested in cooking as an exercise, they just wanted to eat. However, interest in cooking as an art form, not just as consumption, is at an all time high (or so it seems to me from the countless media around food). So, did the microwave kill the culinary arts? No, it liberated the people who didn't care cooking from having to deal with it.

As someone who avoids processed food, I get where you're coming from, but our values are not necessarily other peoples values.

roqetman• 16 years ago

Someone has to write those apps.

xtho• 16 years ago

The people I personally know use microwaves either for heating water or melting cheese or warming up meals from the day before. But then, if that's all people need, then maybe the iPad really is the right tool for them.

ytinas• 16 years ago

I think by "Western nations" you mean North American nations. Even in the UK (probably the most "US-ized" country in Europe" make-from-scratch food is common.

In much of Europe you will find that instant foods make up only a slightly larger part of a grocery than make-from-scratch does in the US. Very minimal.

lyudmil• 16 years ago

It is true that around the time the microwave started becoming a popular way of preparing your food there was a sharp decline in the number of people making their dinner from scratch. However, this decline of "chef culture" was accompanied with much larger political and social change, most notably the feminist movement. It used to be the woman's job to slave over a meal for the family every day, but as women started seeking equal rights, the microwave and TV dinners became an engine for emancipation, a way for women to maintain their household fed while cutting down on housework.

My point being, while technology can enable and accelerate social and cultural changes, it usually is not enough. Usually there must also be a "real" movement where that technology fits. I think this applies to the iPad.

swannodette2• 16 years ago

"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

I simply do not buy this. A tinkerer is born a tinkerer. I had a Mac in the late 80s and throughout the 90s and the only way to program the damn thing was to beg my folks to shell a couple hundred bucks for CodeWarrior and another couple hundred bucks for Apple Reference books.

The dev tools today for the iPad cost $99, the reference is free with the tools. If I was a father right now and I had a ten year-old-tinkerer I'd buy one, give it to my kid, get them a dev account and say, "Hack the shit out of this thing."

EDIT: "A tinkerer is born a tinkerer + some parental encouragement". When my parents (who at the time had little money, father was in the Army) bought our first Apple IIgs, he said "You should learn how to write your own programs for it". I didn't even know what programming was. But this was enough to make me hunt school libraries for books on BASIC.

prospero2• 16 years ago

The dev tools today for the iPad cost $99, the reference is free with the tools.

And how much for the computer which is capable of running those dev tools? The point is that the iPad isn't a device which can be used to modify itself, and if it entirely supplants other computers in a household, your experience becomes completely dictated by what other people have created.

jstevens854• 16 years ago

As the iPad exists today, it's impossible to use without a laptop/desktop. If one day it evolves to the point of being a standalone device, I imagine that it may also be capable of running its own dev tools.

GHFigs3• 16 years ago

Right, because nobody who ever played Nintendo went on to become a game developer.

ampermc• 16 years ago

There is one major difference between the two...the development environment for the iPad doesn't run on the iPad itself, so you end up with a general purpose computer, anyway, if you want to hack.

That said, you can be hacking an iPad for a minimum investment of about $1600. $500 for the iPad, $100 for the Dev Program, and $1000 for a MacBook.

swannodette2• 16 years ago

The Apple IIgs we had in the 1980s was $2500. That's probably closer to $4000-$5000 in today's dollars.

$4000-$5000 vs $1600.

Not bad.

Even if it was $5000 that's a relatively small investment into your child's future.

netcan• 16 years ago

Here's another way of thinking of it. 15 years ago a kid might have had access to a home computer. The machine enabled pretty much all the tinkering that it could enable. The physical limitations (It was very expensive. Everyone uses it and you are not allowed to break it. Mom doesn't want you near it with a screwdriver.) were close to the limitations that mattered.

Today, a kid with an inclination has access to many, many tinker-able things.

A lot of that stuff is new. They can tinker on the web via a browser, which they can do with this device. They can get a Linux machine. They can get Windows. They can get OSX. They can tinker on Android. There aren't that many android devices floating around that aren't someone's phone. In 5 years, there might be lots of old Android phones in drawers that the kid can have.

The fact that you cannot write your own software on an iPad is an arbitrary limitation so people don't like it, but within the ocean of possible tinkering, it is a small drop.

The practical pool of possibilities is growing. The existence of another device, even if it more successful then the iPhone, is not going to change that.

Put another way, if you have the choice of either (a) creating another environment (say a webbapp) where kids can tinker or (b) fighting back the "direction" that the iPad is taking us in, choose a.

bliss• 16 years ago

I half agree with the sentiment here, except... This thing is Gaol Bait if I've ever seen it, I give it a week after launch before arbitrary code execution is possible. Voila, now you can write your own software/tweak away till your heart's content.

Seems an uncool thing to say, but you know what? I'm waiting in that line! I think it looks great.

morlockhq• 16 years ago

That's why my kids are growing up with those clunky ugly computers that the Mac loathes running a completely open operating system with every imaginable programming language at their finger tips.

It won't be pretty, but neither was the Timex Sinclair 1000 that was the first computer that I programmed with BASIC.

derefr• 16 years ago

Remember: The iPad has an app store. Until that is no longer true, Apple will always sell a product that runs XCode and targets that app store, and targets its own platform in order to develop new versions of XCode. Further, because Apple doesn't want to deal with people pushing broken "test" updates to their servers, they'll always have a Simulator program. And, even if every other open platform disappears, you'll always be able to tinker inside that simulator. /pragmatic pessimism

CamperBob2• 16 years ago

This is why I say that the iPad is a cynical thing: Apple can’t – or won’t – conceive of a future for personal computing that is both elegant and open, usable and free.

Sheesh.

It's not a computer. It's an appliance.

If you want an open programmable device, they will cheerfully sell you a Mac.

The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today. I’d never have had the ability to run whatever stupid, potentially harmful, hugely educational programs I could download or write.

And if I had a dishwasher rather than a real computer as a kid, I'd never be a programmer today, either. Oh, wait. The two have nothing to do with each other, except that they both contain microprocessors.

sofal2• 16 years ago

Is it really that hard to picture people using iPads instead of traditional computers?

CamperBob2• 16 years ago

If a closed system ends up working better for some people, all I can say is... whose fault is that?

richcollins2• 16 years ago

I see this as a huge opportunity to have even more people try my creations. Many of the people using iPhones and presumably iPads might never had considered using a web app or traditional desktop app.

dannyr• 16 years ago

I think Alex's main point is that this device is more for people who consume rather than people who create.

richcollins2• 16 years ago

Yes and that is a good thing. We'll have our devices for creating as well. It's not taking from us, its adding to everyone else.

jazzychad• 16 years ago

"...if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

Whoa now. If I were a kid (and a tinkerer) and saw an iPad, I would immediately think, "how can I make something to run on this??" and go off and learn. People still have to write apps for this thing. Just because you cannot actively develop code on it does not mean that it will discourage young tinkerers from learning about programming (for iPad or any other platform).

Apple will continue to create "full computers" if for no other reason than for developers to create software for their "closed computers." That endgame would be sad, but we won't witness the death of desktop/laptop computers.

If someone is so concerned about teaching programming using the iPad, could one not write a BASIC app or some such? That's how I started learning to program: on a VTech computer when I was a kid... it was basically a 1x20 LCD output screen attached to a keyboard and 8 D-Cell batteries. It was mainly to teach typing and had a few trivia games, but it also had a BASIC mode... a very closed device with a BASIC app, sound familiar?

Also, let's not forget about young programmers learning how to do web-based sites/apps. They are not as powerful/fast as native apps, but at least it is a fast/easy/free way to start learning about programming/UI/etc and see it realized on the newest/hottest device. That would be exciting to me as a kid. Webapps are gateway drugs to native apps, trust me.

EDIT: found a picture of the old VTech computer - http://rasterweb.net/raster/computers/images/vtech.jpg

eplanit2• 16 years ago

But Whoa on that 'Whoa'. There's a huge difference: the PC came with vendor and third-party technical reference and programming manuals, BIOS references, etc. It was a world that encouraged that kind of curiosity and creativity.

Now, a kid who does that is a "jailbreaker", and can be sued by Apple for DMCA violations, etc.

My own personal Apple experience: Age 17, Apple II. Open the covers, look at the circuitry, look at sample programs....a career began. New technologists need as many legal reference books as they do technical reference books. (Listen to the old guy refer to 'books') :-)

cpr2• 16 years ago

Well, let's find out just how true this is.

As someone else remarked, if you want to hack, get the dev kit and start hacking (yes, $99/year; think of it as the tinkerer's software upgrade; we've already hashed that out elsewhere on HN).

I also think some of us should start submitting things like Squeak ports (with suitable UI upgrades for touch) as educational apps. I'll bet Apple would let 'em through, because they're no threat to the ecosystem.

I know there are simple programming languages out there on the App Store (e.g., some calculators allow Fortran-like expressions, etc.), so there's not really a ban on programming environments.

In fact, I think the ban in place on scripting language is precisely and exactly to keep Flash off the machine, and I don't blame Apple for wanting to keep that barrier high.

Anything else is unlikely to get stopped.

Yes, yes, it's sad that we have to go through the gatekeeper, etc. We've hashed that out as well.

But I think in the end that tinkerers can win on this machine if they're determined enough, even without jailbreaking.

orangecat4• 16 years ago

Apple has already rejected a Commodore 64 emulator because it allowed access to the BASIC interpreter. Web apps are the only alternate execution environment they'll allow.

cpr2• 16 years ago

OK, then someone needs to make a Squeak-like Javascript programming environment, using only the built-in JS machinery.

Can't see how they could complain about that.

Psyonic• 16 years ago

You can't develop on the device though; you also need a mac, so it's not the same.

jonknee• 16 years ago

I'd like to hear Steve Jobs' take on the matter. It's my opinion that this is what he always wanted and if he made the Mac today it would be a walled garden as well. When the phone came out he was called on it and had an absurd BS answer, but one that's no longer applicable:

"You don’t want your phone to be an open platform," meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. "You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/01/6597.ars

It would be curious to see what he has to say now. I admire the hell of the guy, but it really seems like he doesn't understand the criticism because to him the iPhone OS is the perfect environment. And as such, why would he let anyone screw it up?

gojomo• 16 years ago

Bad assumptions.

Are we sure there won't be an 'XCode' or other dev environment for the iPad? (See also, "YCRFS #5: Development on Handhelds" <http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html>.)

The MobileSafari browser alone is in many ways a richer programming environment -- with Javascript, Canvas, network and storage facilities -- than my Apple ][+ was with Applesoft Basic / Pascal / S-C Macro Assembler, or anything included in the early days of the Mac.

And won't many curious kids jailbreak their iPad? (Did young Al3x ever run pirated software on his 'hackable' machines? Does a bear shit in the woods?)

Given its larger format and educational uses, I also expect Apple will eventually loosen the scripting/runtime limits on the iPad (as compared to the iPhone), and possibly even offer an official 'jailbreak' for full access. They've already broken the lock-to-single-carrier and required-service-plans.

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

Well, this is the very last iPad article I read. There has not been a single person who has had a useful comment.

Either you see the simple computer as some harbinger of the death of the PC, or you are an Apple fanboy who thinks the thing is a magic wand.

Guess what everybody. It's neither.

The iPad will have zero effect on the computing philosophy of the world. The world is no more open or closed than it used to be. And the iPad is just another (probably great, as usual) gadget from Apple.

All of you who are writing these windy pieces about the ramifications of the iPad have just been swept up in a mighty PR storm. Even those decrying the device are just helping Apple.

ynniv4• 16 years ago

Seconded. It seems that any constructive discussion around the iPad is ignored or actively thwarted. Everyone seems to want this to be a flame-war when we should really be looking at the implications should the iPad succeed: tight control is what the markets want. But we're months from discovering that.

DannoHung2• 16 years ago

Here, I got something for you: I was thinking about it earlier, and I was wondering how I'd get something to print from the iPad, being that there's no normal USB connection. And it hit me in the face: Why would I want to print? If it's something I want to give someone else, I'll send it to them through email. If it's something that I'd want to refer to later, I'd just have my iPad with me later.

The iPad kills a lot of the reason for having paper.

joubert3• 16 years ago

I already don't print.

(uhm, except once every 2 years when I renew my apt lease).

ynniv4• 16 years ago

I print via WiFi, but if I didn't I could print via Bluetooth. I don't think its a coincidence that Apple has made Bluetooth versions of their peripherals. There are very few things that USB is required for anymore (mostly flash drives and software dongles).

bliving• 16 years ago

The Bureaucracy won't give up paper easily. Please tell me the iPad will kill (at least that part) of The Bureaucracy? Maybe a paperless society is happening closer to the center of the universe. But it isn't here.

Apple's site does list a "iPad Camera Connection Kit" in the Accessory section of the "Tech Specs" page. It allows connecting with USB cameras. So the hardware is there. Who will make the software?

n8agrin• 16 years ago

Either you see the simple computer as some harbinger of the death of the PC, or you are an Apple fanboy who thinks the thing is a magic wand. Guess what everybody. It's neither.

Your blanket statement is foolish and naive. The range of opinions is far and wide. For example I appreciate Apple's innovation and marketing skills, but I'm no love-blind Apple fanboy and yet I think their mobile strategy is completely game changing.

All of you who are writing these windy pieces about the ramifications of the iPad have just been swept up in a mighty PR storm. Even those decrying the device are just helping Apple.

Largely ignored by the blogs and "PR storm" is this simple underlying fact: with the iPhone, iPod Touch and now iPad what Apple has done for the "computing philosophy" of the world is successfully present an entirely new UI metaphor. They slipped it under our noses, in a 30+ year old world of the windows metaphor, they've marketed and popularized it and now we simply take this drastically different UI as common and expected. To be so cynical about Apple's impact with its mobile line of devices is to have your back to the future of innovation itself.

[Updated based on andrewljohnson's response]

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

I wasn't talking about UI innovation when I said "Computing Philosophy." I was talking about open vs. closed platforms, proprietary vs. open source.

Apple is no more open or closed than before (still totally closed).

EDIT: Since I can't respond to the commenter, I'll edit a response here. The comment is silly... the iPad just came out, the iPhone has been out for years. Maybe Apple got more closed with the release of the iPhone, but the iPad is more of the same.

And actually, iPods are locked down too, so iPhones were just more of the same. Oh wait, Macs were locked down too until Apple switched to Intel processors... so even iPods were nothing new.

elai• 16 years ago

Didn't palm have pretty much the same UI metaphor before any of the iPhone UI came up? It might be the windows 95 to the current windows 7 in terms of sophistication, and replaced styluses with fingers (many applications don't really take advantage of multi-touch), but many of the same items are there.

benatkin• 16 years ago

> The iPad will have zero effect on the computing philosophy of the world.

I've seen many strong arguments made against this, including the in this article. Since you don't want to read any more opinions about it I won't re-iterate, but I will point out that you're handwaving.

alexqgb• 16 years ago

Alex Payne seems not to have noticed the price. At $500, he can afford to buy one of these and a 24" iMac for less than the cost on a 13" MacBookPro. Or he buy a Dell, or - really - anything he wants.

Then again, perhaps Alex Payne noticed some EULA fine print that says buying one of these forces you to discard every other object you own with a chip inside, and swear absolute allegiance to this ONE thing.

I suspect, instead, that Alex Payne is simply being an idiot.

eplanit2• 16 years ago

It's full-circle for Apple...they _never_ liked openness. The new iPad, with all the closed-ness and proprietariness of it isn't shocking by how new it is...but how oddly familiar it is. The Apple I knew (and resisted) from the 1980s to the mid 2000s was decidedly and deliberately closed, and in complete opposition to the open systems and PC world. They might go back to that model, at which point I'll go right back to not using any Apple products. The world will (hopefully) always want open-ness. If Apple won't deliver that, someone else will.

I'm less optimistic about consumers. The iPad might indeed be just what 'regular' consumers want....a new kind of fancy TV set. If so, the iPad is just right for them.

The dark cloud for me is that parallel. When TV was introduced, people had grand visions of an informed society, brought together by broadcasts of useful and enlightening knowledge. It ended up being an ad-selling jukebox of near-useless crap. We've projected the same (and even larger) hopes and dreams on the new technology...but the trajectory seems all too familiar.

d0m• 16 years ago

For me, the iPad isn't a computer. It's more of a really cool gadjet which will let me see webpage, play games and watch video in a really cool way. It's a tool I will use when eating and travelling.

It seems like people aren't arguing about the right thing. It's like saying the iPhone sucks because you can't use vim, compile or use grep. Or that a microwave sucks because you can't put a big cooking pot inside.

GeorgeTirebiter• 16 years ago

So, you're going to lug and iPad AND your laptop when you travel? Seems like fail to me. (Don't forget the chargers and cables you'll need, too).

nickbw3• 16 years ago

Hey, look, another doom and gloom article about the iPad and the end of open development. Let's just try searching it for some keywords.

"web" ... not found

"browser" ... not found

"safari" ... not found

Yes, well.

When did native apps become the new vinyl records? "Sure, the web is great and platform independent, but there's just more soul in compiled code."

dschobel6• 16 years ago

No one gave a crap about applications on iphone before the app store. I have yet to hear one story written about the mad rush to develop web applications for the iphone.

The native app/app store combination is incontrovertibly the best way to deliver applications and have your product found.

To pretend otherwise is disingenuous or simply naive.

nickbw3• 16 years ago

No one gave a crap about web apps for the iPhone because they all wanted to develop apps that took advantage of phone features. (Which Apple has been making more and more accessible to web apps anyway.)

The entire scare here is that the iPad will make personal computing a closed ecosystem. But the web is already where most people spend most of their computer time, and Safari is an excellent and standards-complient browser.

No, you won't develop web apps for the iPad. You'll develop web apps, period. For the web. Which people will use on iPads and any other computer they please.

The battle that matters is keeping web standards open. Consumer operating systems can be as closed as they like, as long as they come with a compatible browser.

philwelch• 16 years ago

"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

You could say the same about most PC's, actually. Time was, when you got a computer it had a few programs and some sort of interpreter or compiler to build your own program. Kids back then who got computers became programmers. Kids today get computers and go on the internet, and there's enough there to distract you that you don't get bored enough to install a compiler or something.

Somehow, kids still get into programming anyway.

chaostheory• 16 years ago

"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

Laptops and desktops aren't going away. Everyone is blogging like the end of the hacker world is coming. Apple isn't forcing anyone to buy their products. Worse comes to worse you can just build a PC if you don't like the convenience of a great looking prison.

marshallp• 16 years ago

"The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today."

Programming should be moving to the cloud anyway - heroku,appengine,aws is where the hacker should be innovating - do programming through the web browser

you can have kids do simple programming in the webbrowser in javascript

replicatorblog• 16 years ago

If I had a book of art when I was a kid I wouldn't have learned to paint.

If I lived near a 5 star restaurant I would never have learned to cook.

If I could watch professional soccer I wouldn't learn to play.

There are dozens of closed systems, far harder to crack than the app store that people bulldoze through because they love them

Well made products strike chords with people and excite them to the point where they have to make something as nice, or better. If anything I think this will hasten the transition from passive TV watching to interactivity which will spur more hacking.

mcherm• 16 years ago

Let's re-phrase those to keep the analogy a little more accurate:

If I hadn't been able to scribble in the margins of my art books, I never would have learned to draw.

If all my meals had come pre-packaged and pre-approved by the food board with raw ingredients prohibited, then I would never have learned to cook.

If I could watch professional soccer but was prohibited from playing myself except on a regulation field (none of which were near my house) then I wouldn't have learned to play.

The existence of closed systems doesn't harm learning. But if the tools we give people are closed systems rather than open ones, that DOES harm learning... folks will learn to work with tools others build but will NOT learn to build it themselves. Which works great for becoming better consumers, but perhaps isn't the best way to create a new generation of inventors and innovators.

sahaj• 16 years ago

remember this? http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

btucker• 16 years ago

I don't buy it. We all know the thing'll be jailbroken in short order. If a kid wants to tinker with an iPad I'm sure there will be just as many ResEdit-esque opportunities to hack it.

aantix• 16 years ago

In an article that outlines how the iPad as doing "little to enable creativity", I'm surprised that he didn't mention the irony of Apple's claim yesterday that it's at "at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts."

elliottkember• 16 years ago

I keep hoping that escalators will replace stairs, but they never do.

rythie• 16 years ago

"Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the hacker era of digital history"

Couldn't you have said the same about the games console?

Even now I can't program my Wii or any other major console, and that's been consistently true for over 30 years in games consoles. People knew then, just as they know now, if you want to tinker you get a real computer.

The difference is, now you'll be able to program for the device your friends use, where as programs I wrote on my PC stayed there and my friends with consoles could never use/play them.

(though it would be nice if you could develop from Linux and Windows machines too)

gfodor• 16 years ago

By the sound of the web today, you'd think Apple pulled the plug on their entire Mac product line and now only sells iPads and iPhones.

jsz0• 16 years ago

If we want to blame someone for the emergence of walled gardens in technology it should go squarely on the developers of malware, crackers, exploiters, fraudsters, etc. They've made the open computing experience terrible for the average user.

Kevin_Marks• 16 years ago

Alex's fears remind me of 'real programmers' reactiosn to the Web when it came out. The iPad is the Web made physical.

http://epeus.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipad-is-web-made-physical....

jrwoodruff• 16 years ago

The automobile has followed a similar trajectory. Early cars were 'open' in a sense. Ford's Model T came with a small toolkit that contained all the tools needed to repair it. Modern cars barely come with enough tools to change a flat tire, but that hasn't stopped people from modding. Now, in addition to boring out heads or swapping engines, modern street rodders can tweak the fuel-to-air ratio with their laptops and install large-bore fuel injectors.

Hacking is something that will always be around. The iPad may - if successful - usher in a new, possibly more mature era of computing, but people are still going to be hacking the new devices. Just because it ain't your daddy's '69 Camaro doesn't mean it can't be modded for the drag strip.

drawkbox• 16 years ago

Game consoles such as the XBOX, PS3 and now the iPad are always closed to help create a market and for quality of service for the consumer device that they are. The XBOX 360 is a bit more open than the others but I consider the iPad much like a console with a specific purpose. It may just even challenge the XBOX and PS3 as a game console much as the iPhone and iPod Touch have done. I wish they were more open but openness also kills a bit of the market and revenue possibilities. It sucks, but that is just the way it is.

Computers and hacker culture will still exist, they can pry that from my cold dead hands. But while I am at it I will make some money in the market that Apple is creating.

jstevens854• 16 years ago

Palm's Project Ares may be a sign of the future. Perhaps in the future development will be hosted in the cloud rather than on the programmers unit itself.

http://ares.palm.com/Ares/about.html

loup-vaillant• 16 years ago

Trusted Computing.

I don't understand why no one coined the term yet. The IPhone, IPod Touch and IPad are computers with some form of Trusted computing. The IPone and IPod Touch weren't a big cause for concern because they weren't seen as fully fledged computers (although technically, they are). The IPad, on the other hand, leaves no doubt.

I think few disagree here when I say that Trusted Computing is a scandal, is dangerous, and restricts our liberties. I think no one here would be willing to buy a "Trusted Computing" desktop (except for cracking it).

Yet many people here don't see the exact same danger with the IPad. Some even love it. Why? Maybe because the device looks new. Maybe because it is the logical sequel of the IPhone (it feels like being slowly cooked with the proverbial frog). Maybe it is because people feel safe when a big Gatekeeper keeps bad things out. Maybe this is a combination of all those things. Actually, I don't really know.

The IPad is Trusted Computing Without A Name. Accepting it is accepting Trusted Computing. Your choice.

On the iPad

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