Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pollette, and
Speaker 1: I am the tech editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And across from me sitting in his usual
Speaker 1: seat sipping some tea as senior writer Jonathan Strickland, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Technology podcast that's out of this world. Okay,
Speaker 1: then that's gonna make no sense to you because you
Speaker 1: didn't hear what we were talking about immediately before we
Speaker 1: hit record. At least I hope you didn't. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope that's really up to Liz. Let's start this this
Speaker 1: appolicious episode with a little listener mail list. Listener mail
Speaker 1: comes from Chris k r I s Chris says, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to see you what you would say about
Speaker 1: at Jason pranking the Twitter world about the iPad just
Speaker 1: to get an extra twenty thou followers. Is it immoral
Speaker 1: or against some code of the Internet? Also, do you
Speaker 1: still think the iPad is too awkward a form factor
Speaker 1: or worth buying? Chris? Well, Chris, um, we'll get into
Speaker 1: what Jason calicanas, which is that's the person behind at
Speaker 1: Jason what he did a little bit later. But first
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the iPad, something that everyone has
Speaker 1: been talking about ever since Apple first unveiled it on Well,
Speaker 1: it was just two days before we started recording this podcast.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. Um, that would be January A
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Wednesday. And Apple has a tendency to not
Speaker 1: tell you what's coming up at their announcements, but making
Speaker 1: this sort of veiled reference with graphics and and you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of tagline tagline. Basically, they see our latest
Speaker 1: creation was the tagline and had lots of splashy colors
Speaker 1: on the hand of the invite. And uh, but everybody
Speaker 1: sort of knew what was going to go on because
Speaker 1: for weeks beforehand, if you're tuning in very late, and uh,
Speaker 1: this is all old news to you. Uh, we've been
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility that Apple was going to come
Speaker 1: out with a tablet computer of some sort. Now you
Speaker 1: say weeks, but in reality we're talking years. Well, it's true, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is something that's been going on for
Speaker 1: many years. Okay, So I remember last year that nine
Speaker 1: that there were rumors when Steve Jobs was going to
Speaker 1: return to Apple, because he took a medical leave starting
Speaker 1: in in the beginning of the year. Uh, there were
Speaker 1: rumors that when he would return, he would return also
Speaker 1: with the announcement of this tablet device, which had already
Speaker 1: been in the the rumor mill for quite some time
Speaker 1: at that point. Oh so this is more than six
Speaker 1: months ago. And the first of all, Steve Jobs did
Speaker 1: not appear at the press release that everyone thought he
Speaker 1: was gonna appear in back in June. Um, he remained
Speaker 1: off stage. And then second of all, Uh, there was
Speaker 1: no mention of the tablet. And then there was another
Speaker 1: Apple event mentioned announced for September of two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: Again everyone went bonkers, thinking that the tablet. This has
Speaker 1: got to be it. This is when they're going to
Speaker 1: finally announce this tablet thing, whatever it may be. Uh.
Speaker 1: But of course that was an iPod event. It was
Speaker 1: all about their ipodline and updates to it, had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the tablet. They made no mention of it.
Speaker 1: And uh, there were rumors coming out that Okay, well,
Speaker 1: they're gonna announce it sometime in February of two thousand
Speaker 1: TENU at the beginning of two thousand ten Apple there
Speaker 1: were rumors that Apple is going to hold an event
Speaker 1: at the end of January and that that would finally
Speaker 1: be when we hear about the tablet. And as the
Speaker 1: end of January neared, first it was confirmed that yes,
Speaker 1: indeed they were going to hold an event, and then
Speaker 1: it became pretty much a certainty among most people on
Speaker 1: the Internet that they were, in fact, and I mentioned
Speaker 1: some sort of tablet device, and uh, I was kind
Speaker 1: of hoping that they wouldn't, just to see what would happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that that there is sort of a almost like thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of a letdown that they actually announced what they
Speaker 1: everyone thought that they were announced, But it was the
Speaker 1: iPad that they announced, which uh, some people have referred
Speaker 1: to as an oversized iPod Touch. I think, even even
Speaker 1: though I am personally skeptical of this device and the
Speaker 1: usefulness of this device, I think that's not entirely fair. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think that it is unfair to classify it as
Speaker 1: a giant iPod Touch is definitely more than that. But
Speaker 1: I can see why people would be tempted to call
Speaker 1: it that, because after two years of speculation, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that any device Apple unveiled, no matter how amazing
Speaker 1: it was, was bound to disappoint people because after two years,
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you live up to that kind
Speaker 1: of anticipation. Un Us it had a direct line to
Speaker 1: heaven and could make you milkshakes, I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: you're going to be disappointed and on some level, no
Speaker 1: matter what it did. Okay, Well, since I actually wrote
Speaker 1: a blog post about this a few days ago, the
Speaker 1: day of the it's released, And uh, before we go further,
Speaker 1: one don't I since since I, since I'm the writer,
Speaker 1: I can plagiarize myself, why don't I just tell you
Speaker 1: what it is and what it can do? Hit me
Speaker 1: and then we can actually talk about what it means.
Speaker 1: Sounds okay. So it's it's half an inch thin and
Speaker 1: weighs one point five pounds. UM. It's got a nine
Speaker 1: point seven inch in plane switching ips backlit led display. UM.
Speaker 1: It's got a proprietary Apple design one gigga Hurts processor
Speaker 1: that runs a version of the iPhone OS, and it
Speaker 1: can run i've Touch and iPhone applications without modifying them,
Speaker 1: although developers can write new versions of those applications that
Speaker 1: take advantage of the larger screen size. Um. You can
Speaker 1: watch movies on it. You can watch TV shows on it. YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's got the YouTube app, so you can watch videos
Speaker 1: from YouTube on it. You can listen to music. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know that's a giant iPod touch. Um has an
Speaker 1: iTunes app on it. Yep. Uh, so that means you
Speaker 1: can download and listen to music on i Tunes. You
Speaker 1: and other content podcasts. Um. You can read e books
Speaker 1: on it. There's an application that they put on there
Speaker 1: called e Books that will allow you to read books
Speaker 1: from a number of different publishers. It's got a very
Speaker 1: slick in our face. Yes. Yes, it looks sort of
Speaker 1: like Bookshow. Actually it looks a little bit like Delicious
Speaker 1: Library for the Mac. You've ever seen that application? Um?
Speaker 1: And Apple has time deals with publishers including Hashett, HarperCollins, McMillan, Penguin,
Speaker 1: and Simon and Schuster. Um. It has built in WiFi
Speaker 1: but uh and Bluetooth, but if you want three G
Speaker 1: connectivity you have to pay on it and thirty dollars
Speaker 1: extra for that. And it's uh it's a O two
Speaker 1: dot eleven in Yeah, that's what said on the okay Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is actually a a faster and uh has longer
Speaker 1: range than the previous versions. Um, and let's see, there
Speaker 1: is a doc If you want it, you can dock
Speaker 1: it and attach it to your your you know, basically
Speaker 1: set it up so that it functions like a laptop
Speaker 1: screen in front of you. And you can buy a keyboard.
Speaker 1: Although it doesn't come with a keyboard, it's it inform factory.
Speaker 1: It actually does look very much like the iPod Touch
Speaker 1: because it's got a virtual keyword on the screen. Button
Speaker 1: is the one, you know, the round button and I
Speaker 1: guess the power on off. But I do maintain that
Speaker 1: the on screen keyboard is awkward if you're going to
Speaker 1: do extensive data entry. If you're just typing a couple
Speaker 1: of notes in or whatever, it's not so bad. Um. Otherwise, Uh,
Speaker 1: if I were to own this device, I would probably
Speaker 1: want the the keyboard accessory. If I were ever planning on, say,
Speaker 1: composing an email longer than two sentences, I would probably
Speaker 1: want that, just because, uh, it's I find it very
Speaker 1: irritating to use on screen keyboards. I'm just I'm a
Speaker 1: very fast type and it's frustrating to get slowed down
Speaker 1: to that level. Well, speaking of productivity, In addition to
Speaker 1: App Store apps, Apple is offering a version of its
Speaker 1: I work software which includes Pages which is the word
Speaker 1: process or Keynote, which is a you know, presentation software,
Speaker 1: and numbers, a spreadsheet program. Uh. For each um and
Speaker 1: UM there are three different versions sixteen gigabytes, thirty two gigabytes,
Speaker 1: and sixty four gigabytes of space. Uh, they go four
Speaker 1: and that's for the WiFi only. If you want the
Speaker 1: three g ad hundred and thirty dollars each. On top
Speaker 1: of that, now the three g's only gonna that's you
Speaker 1: have to wait an extra month, and you also have
Speaker 1: to pay for an a T and T contract for
Speaker 1: thirty dollars a month for not at it's a non
Speaker 1: contract paid, so you prepay however many months you want.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's fifteen dollars or we're up to two
Speaker 1: and fifty megaby it's of data for a month, or
Speaker 1: thirty dollars for what they're calling unlimited. I'm saying what
Speaker 1: they're calling unlimited because in in many of these cases
Speaker 1: you later find out that what is referred to as
Speaker 1: unlimited ends up being very very limited, or at least
Speaker 1: there's a cap, which means that it's not really unlimited, UM,
Speaker 1: but I don't know the details behind that. At any rate,
Speaker 1: it's thirty dollars a month and you do prepay, and
Speaker 1: it's not a contract. And I also found out today
Speaker 1: that I Books uses UM the accelerometer built in to
Speaker 1: the device, so that you can read books in landscape
Speaker 1: or portrait mode. UM. But if you were interested in
Speaker 1: buying books through the online bookstore that Apple has set
Speaker 1: up with all these publishers, you have to be in
Speaker 1: the United States, because currently the licensing agreements do not
Speaker 1: permit you to buy stuff outside the United States at
Speaker 1: this time. Well, and we knew that Apple had been
Speaker 1: really pushing to make deals with publishers leading up to
Speaker 1: this announcement. So this is still early days yet. And
Speaker 1: maybe that by the time these these devices launch that
Speaker 1: there will be much more comprehensive deals in place. So
Speaker 1: by the time you buy one of these things, or
Speaker 1: you're able to buy one of these things, that that
Speaker 1: problem may be solved. We don't know yet, right right, UM,
Speaker 1: And I have a quote for you, Jonathan, because I'm
Speaker 1: just waiting to see what you say. I probably take
Speaker 1: a good ten minute break after this. UM, You're you're
Speaker 1: familiar with Nicholas Carr, the technology writer. Yes, he actually
Speaker 1: wrote the blog post and inspired are the article that
Speaker 1: I wrote for the site called way are how the
Speaker 1: Apple Google uh Cloud computer will work? Um. He wrote
Speaker 1: a post for NPR National Public Radio on the website,
Speaker 1: and here's a quote from him. I'm just explaining in
Speaker 1: case no one else is right, especially for people who
Speaker 1: who are outside the United States. I'm trying to brace myself.
Speaker 1: The PC era ended yesterday morning at ten o'clock Pacific time,
Speaker 1: when Steve Jobs stepped onto a stand in Francisco stage
Speaker 1: to unveil the iPad, Apple's version of a tablet computer. Alright, folks,
Speaker 1: dress yourselves in. I want to have a little bit
Speaker 1: of discussion with Mr Carr here. Mr Carr, I greatly
Speaker 1: respect you. You You are a very intelligent person, probably more
Speaker 1: intelligent than I am. I'm gonna go take a break.
Speaker 1: Could you give me some sandwich? Um, So, before I
Speaker 1: get into it and and explain exactly how much I
Speaker 1: disagree with that statement, which is completely I'll just go
Speaker 1: and say that I completely disagree with that statement. Well,
Speaker 1: he actually softens it. I just wanted to quote him
Speaker 1: on that one. Excellent, but actually go read the post
Speaker 1: because it really is kind of interesting. Okay, So so
Speaker 1: I shouldn't just judge the whole thing by that one quote,
Speaker 1: but I but I wanted to an example of what
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying. Yeah, because it's there's
Speaker 1: so much hype behind it, I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's definitely too premature to say that. Um So, here
Speaker 1: here a couple of other things we should add before
Speaker 1: we I really get into it. One, the battery life
Speaker 1: around ten hours. And that's even if you're watching video.
Speaker 1: According to what they said at the press release it
Speaker 1: you could get ten hours of video on this thing,
Speaker 1: which is a video is a is a very demanding applications.
Speaker 1: So if that's true, that's pretty impressive. I'm be very
Speaker 1: surprised to see that. Now we have to remember that
Speaker 1: often the actual battery life tends to be a little
Speaker 1: different from what the advertised battery life is. But let's
Speaker 1: just go ahead and assume that that's that's true. Um
Speaker 1: here are some things that does not have right now
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast. Now, this could
Speaker 1: all change by the time it launches, well not all
Speaker 1: of it, but some of it. Um it does not
Speaker 1: have the ability to multitask, you can't run multiple applications
Speaker 1: at the same time. I would argue that alone invalidates
Speaker 1: Mr Carr's statement. Well, I I okay, before we go
Speaker 1: and you um jump, since you haven't actually read this,
Speaker 1: I will. I will tell you why he said this.
Speaker 1: He said that the tablet, and in launching the iPad,
Speaker 1: Apple has created the missing piece of the non PC
Speaker 1: segment that's basically shattered it into all the little pieces now,
Speaker 1: such as on the smaller end smartphones, smart books, netbooks,
Speaker 1: and now the tablet in between. He said, basically, people
Speaker 1: don't really necessarily need a PC. You will find a
Speaker 1: a kind. You will find something in that spectrum that
Speaker 1: if you want to take your laptop with you, you
Speaker 1: no longer need something that large. You have something in
Speaker 1: between a desktop and a smartphone occurring to use that
Speaker 1: still has me Okay, cool, excellent. I just want to
Speaker 1: declare I understand his reasoning. Uh. First of all, I
Speaker 1: would argue that one, the tablet form factor is not new.
Speaker 1: It's been around for years, more than two decades really,
Speaker 1: or around two decades, I would say, And so therefore,
Speaker 1: if something has been around for twenty years and it
Speaker 1: has not revolutionized the technology industry. It may very well
Speaker 1: be that it's not. You know, it's a it's an
Speaker 1: also ran anyway, um, because the tablet is neither fish
Speaker 1: nor foul. It is not a smartphone. It is not
Speaker 1: a computer. The tablet, the iPad specifically, cannot really exist
Speaker 1: as its own standalone computing device. Uh. You can run
Speaker 1: a lot of a little cool apps on it, which
Speaker 1: are great. And I don't mean to dismiss the apps
Speaker 1: when I say little cool apps. They do generally tend
Speaker 1: to be less complex and less demanding than full computer programs,
Speaker 1: but many of them are incredibly innovative and very useful.
Speaker 1: I have apps on my smartphone and I love them. Um.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I don't confuse them with fully
Speaker 1: fledged computer applications, so you can't run those. You essentially
Speaker 1: need a computer to sink your iPad too on occasion,
Speaker 1: so you can't just get away with having the iPad
Speaker 1: as your primary computing device. You can't use it to
Speaker 1: make calls like you can with a smartphone, so you
Speaker 1: can't have it replaced that what Well, now that they've
Speaker 1: unblocked using v I P on three G networks, you
Speaker 1: could make that just happened yesterday. You can use some
Speaker 1: vope technology, this is true, but if they don't want
Speaker 1: using the Skype application, if you used a plugable, you know,
Speaker 1: a third party microphone, I'm I'm wondering, why would you
Speaker 1: do it? Why? Why would you do it? That's a
Speaker 1: that's a better question. Yeah, because it doesn't like if
Speaker 1: you happen to have it sitting around, then sure you
Speaker 1: can pick it up and make a phone call. But otherwise,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not going to carry this thing around
Speaker 1: with you to to make It's not going to replace
Speaker 1: a smartphone. And then there's the quality of voipe calls,
Speaker 1: which and as Chris makes his point, uh, I will continue. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's no camera yet that might come out on
Speaker 1: a future edition of the iPad. Bet that will happen.
Speaker 1: But with no camera you can't do things like video conferencing,
Speaker 1: which to me was seemed crazy because they showed him
Speaker 1: the press release a really cool use of it as
Speaker 1: a presentation device, where they showed how how the presentation
Speaker 1: the Keynote presentation software works on the iPad, and it
Speaker 1: was legitimately impressive. It looked slick, it was intuitive. I
Speaker 1: thought it was really well done. But if you're going
Speaker 1: to create something that does something that well, you're suggesting
Speaker 1: essentially to your audience, Hey, this is a great business tool.
Speaker 1: If you don't put a camera in there where you
Speaker 1: can do video conferencing, it's not really a great business tool.
Speaker 1: It's an incomplete business tool, just as I would argue
Speaker 1: it's an incomplete everything tool. I called it earlier while
Speaker 1: I was in the office, and I think this this
Speaker 1: holds water. I think the iPad is the perfect tool
Speaker 1: to browse the web. If we were talking about web
Speaker 1: one point oh web one point out. What I mean
Speaker 1: by that is it doesn't really ultimately mean anything and
Speaker 1: some marketing term, but but in general, what I mean
Speaker 1: is the old style websites where you consumed the content
Speaker 1: that was there, but you didn't contribute to it. You
Speaker 1: would go to a website, you would read what was there,
Speaker 1: and then you would leave, and that's all there was
Speaker 1: to it. You might go to websites now and watch
Speaker 1: a couple of videos and leave, and that's all there
Speaker 1: is to it. But a lot of the websites out
Speaker 1: there today are what we would refer to as web
Speaker 1: two point oh sites where contribution and participation is a
Speaker 1: major factor of browsing, and I argue that the iPad
Speaker 1: and it's on screen keyboard device is not the most
Speaker 1: useful if you want to do a lot of contributing
Speaker 1: while you're on the web. And I don't know about
Speaker 1: anyone else. I mean, there are probably plenty of people
Speaker 1: out there who all they do is consume stuff on
Speaker 1: the web. They don't necessarily participate in discussions or anything
Speaker 1: like that. For them, this device might be perfect, and
Speaker 1: I won't argue against that. I think if it works
Speaker 1: for your lifestyle, great by one, by as many as
Speaker 1: you like. But for people who do lots of participation
Speaker 1: across the web, I think trying to use this as
Speaker 1: your your main device, or even as a supplemental device
Speaker 1: that you're using while you're like sitting on the couch
Speaker 1: or whatever, will ultimately be frustrating, just because it's too
Speaker 1: hard to input data and into something that kind of
Speaker 1: requires two hands. And uh, I mean, when you think
Speaker 1: about it, you're typing on the same surface that you're
Speaker 1: looking at. So you're either typing on it by holding
Speaker 1: it in one hand and using the other hand to
Speaker 1: peck out words, or you're gonna have to put it
Speaker 1: on your lap or on a tabletop or something and
Speaker 1: try and type with two hands, uh that way, which
Speaker 1: is why I argue that you can't really do extensive
Speaker 1: data entry. That's why I call it the web. One
Speaker 1: point of a web browser jobs when he got up there,
Speaker 1: said that netbooks don't do anything well. They do lots
Speaker 1: of stuff, but they don't do anything well, including web browsing.
Speaker 1: I argue that netbooks are superior to the tablet in
Speaker 1: the web browsing experience simply because it's easier to type
Speaker 1: stuff in. It may not be as slick and interface,
Speaker 1: but they're going to be able to do things that
Speaker 1: you can't do with the tablet or the iPad. I
Speaker 1: should say, I keep calling it the tablet because that's
Speaker 1: what we've been calling it for years, but the iPad. Um.
Speaker 1: That's not to say the iPad is a bad device.
Speaker 1: I think it looks beautiful. I think the stuff it
Speaker 1: does it does pretty well. Um, I think the stuff
Speaker 1: it doesn't do is pretty damning because there are other
Speaker 1: devices out on the market that do those things. There's
Speaker 1: an Android tablet that's in the works that does all
Speaker 1: the stuff that you think the tablet. The iPad should
Speaker 1: be able to do. Um. Will it be successful? Probably not.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think the iPad, despite all
Speaker 1: the things that I find wrong with it, is going
Speaker 1: to be incredibly successful. I also think that the people
Speaker 1: who buy one three months after they buy it are
Speaker 1: gonna set it down and forget that they have it,
Speaker 1: because it's just not gonna be instrumental in their daily lives,
Speaker 1: and it'll just be a cool piece of technology that
Speaker 1: doesn't get used very much. All right, now, what I
Speaker 1: also want to say, kid kidding, you've heard me rant
Speaker 1: for like seven eight minutes straight. Chris actually left he Um,
Speaker 1: he's brought back Arby's so rosecuef Tyler, nothing says Nothing
Speaker 1: says iPad like a cartoner Curly fries. Um. Well, I
Speaker 1: think I think the funny thing about the iPad is
Speaker 1: that it's actually about tablet computers in general. It's it's
Speaker 1: more of a niche thing, and I think that Apple's
Speaker 1: loaning Apple's name and interface to it suddenly makes it
Speaker 1: a consumer thing where it really probably should have been before,
Speaker 1: but nobody really wanted to mess with it. I've seen
Speaker 1: them used in a lot of cases. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there are lots and lots of tablets used in the
Speaker 1: medical industry right because they're really handy for artists use
Speaker 1: various kinds of tablets, and architects use various kinds of tablets.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of many good reasons to use them.
Speaker 1: Um And like you said, it hasn't really broken into
Speaker 1: the consumer market. I think partly because as convenient as
Speaker 1: a tablet is, it's really convenient if you keep it
Speaker 1: in your house. You know, it's not necessarily the convenient
Speaker 1: device that you take with you on the go because
Speaker 1: it's about the same size as a netbook. It's it's
Speaker 1: not as thick as a netbook, it's not as heavy
Speaker 1: as a netbook. But you're gonna need a bag about
Speaker 1: the size of a netbook bag to carry this thing
Speaker 1: around it and the protective case so that you don't
Speaker 1: get any scratches on that screen, that gorgeous screen. You
Speaker 1: don't want that to get all scratched up. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the it's it's just not as portable as what
Speaker 1: It's not portable enough to be a big enough draw
Speaker 1: compared to a netbook. In my opinion, Now, I do
Speaker 1: think there is a market for this. I think there
Speaker 1: are people who will think this is really cool and
Speaker 1: they'll buy one and they'll be very pleased with it. UM.
Speaker 1: I think people along my line of thought just don't
Speaker 1: see a place like if I want to watch a movie,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna either watch it on my computer on
Speaker 1: my DVD player or through Roku on my television, um,
Speaker 1: or I'll hook up a computer to my TV and
Speaker 1: watch it that way. But for people who don't have
Speaker 1: that kind of level of comfort with technology, this is
Speaker 1: this thing makes sense. So it might be that the
Speaker 1: reason why I have so many problems with this is
Speaker 1: because I am not the target market for this device,
Speaker 1: and and people who are the target market they may
Speaker 1: have nothing but great things to say about it, which
Speaker 1: that's fine, you know well, and UM, but I think
Speaker 1: I think there are other groups that might latch onto
Speaker 1: the iPad that might not have been in that that
Speaker 1: other segments of the population. UM. For example, education, it
Speaker 1: might be an opportunity for UH schools to get a
Speaker 1: a computer that they can use in that case, um,
Speaker 1: because they're they're less expend of than other forms of
Speaker 1: of laptops. Now maybe not netbooks. Um. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who will argue with me on
Speaker 1: that and say, well, you can get um, you know,
Speaker 1: a very cheap notebook for under four hundred dollars. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that's probably true, but I think that there are people
Speaker 1: that might try to adopt it, and you know, I
Speaker 1: would I want to say to that, I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: in the market to run out and buy an I
Speaker 1: have had as soon as they hit store shelves, but
Speaker 1: I would like to mess with it because, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I personally like the OS ten interface and I would
Speaker 1: like to buy something that I could carry with me
Speaker 1: to uh, you know on on the rare occasions when
Speaker 1: I do travel. Um, but I don't really want to
Speaker 1: fork over the money for a whole notebook, and I
Speaker 1: mostly I'm basically going to try to get on the
Speaker 1: web and do email now, as you pointed out, without
Speaker 1: any flash right now at the moment, there is if
Speaker 1: there are some limitations to you, but I'm I'm interested
Speaker 1: in looking at it and messing around with it to
Speaker 1: see if I could use it for that purpose, because
Speaker 1: it is less expensive than a full fledged Apple notebook. Um.
Speaker 1: And there are the people who would tell me, why
Speaker 1: don't you just you know, get a netbook and make
Speaker 1: it a Hackintosh. Well I could probably do that too,
Speaker 1: except for the whole them walking out the atom processor thing. Well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I think that they It'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how far Apple's marketing can take this,
Speaker 1: because there there's a limit to the market for this,
Speaker 1: I think literally, but whether or not there's a desire
Speaker 1: the desire site of the market, well, uh, how far
Speaker 1: they will take it. So the tablet doesn't really compete
Speaker 1: against netbooks other than the fact that Jobs came out
Speaker 1: and said netbooks suck. Uh yeah, essentially jobs kind of
Speaker 1: through the gauntlet down. But really, the tablets not in
Speaker 1: the same space as the netbook in my opinion. It's
Speaker 1: also not really in the same space as e readers,
Speaker 1: which is the other device that people have said is
Speaker 1: the tablet and e reader killer? Is it a Kindle killer? Um?
Speaker 1: I would kind of argue that it's not even really
Speaker 1: in the same space as the tablets that have gone
Speaker 1: before it and are being marketed alongside it. Well, no,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the tablets that are marketed beside it,
Speaker 1: and Go and and came before it are more of
Speaker 1: us stand alone computing device. They don't they aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: as slick and easy to use. They don't have all
Speaker 1: the features that the iPad has, but they do have
Speaker 1: the ability to to run multiple processes and they can
Speaker 1: run more more fully fledged programs in the iPad can't.
Speaker 1: But that being said, let's getting back to the whole
Speaker 1: Kindle thing. Yeah, I was asked about that, like, do
Speaker 1: I think it's uh trouble for the Kindle And I
Speaker 1: think that all depends upon what you're in the market for.
Speaker 1: If people are in the market or an e reader,
Speaker 1: then I think if you compare the two devices and
Speaker 1: the experience you get between the two devices, things like
Speaker 1: the battery life and the ease of the ink display
Speaker 1: on your eyes in comparison to a backlet display, those
Speaker 1: sort of things will end the price because it's the
Speaker 1: Kindles cheaper. Will kind of helped the Kindle went out. Also,
Speaker 1: the massive Amazon library helps Barnes and Noble Nook same
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You've got the Barnes and Noble store
Speaker 1: behind that than the e ink display, then it's cheaper
Speaker 1: than the than the iPad. If, however, you're looking for
Speaker 1: a device that does more than just e books, then
Speaker 1: I think the iPad wins out because even though it's
Speaker 1: more expensive. It's not prohibitively expensive, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's maybe it's less than twice the amount of the
Speaker 1: Kindle and the nook, but uh, and it does weigh
Speaker 1: more than the Kindle or nook do. So if you're
Speaker 1: in the market for something that does more than just
Speaker 1: displays books, and you don't really care about the battery
Speaker 1: life issue, uh, then the iPad wins out. So I
Speaker 1: think I think it will probably take a bite out
Speaker 1: of e book readers sales, But for people who are
Speaker 1: specifically looking for that e reader experience, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's gonna dissuade them from buying a Nook or a Kindle. Okay,
Speaker 1: three things, Uh. Number one, the the advantage that the
Speaker 1: iPad has as an e book reader strictly as an
Speaker 1: e book reader over the Kindle and other eating screens
Speaker 1: is its color interface. And people who were who really
Speaker 1: actually need stuff like graphs, charts, um color illustrations, or
Speaker 1: really really want that, you're not going to get that
Speaker 1: in the anything with an eating interface. Of course, if
Speaker 1: you want to read a novel that doesn't require illustrations,
Speaker 1: the you know you're gonna be using a lot of
Speaker 1: power to light that with a an iPad where you
Speaker 1: wouldn't with a kindle. The kindle is probably going to
Speaker 1: be the better bet. UM number two, UM the Kindle
Speaker 1: as their Amazon has also started offering to open up
Speaker 1: the Kindle to third party applications in development, So there
Speaker 1: is a possibility that uh, Amazon is already anticipating Apple's
Speaker 1: move into this and and starting to uh to plan
Speaker 1: for their next move. It's gonna have to be a
Speaker 1: limited suite of applications though, just because they display technology
Speaker 1: isn't designed to show things like animation, so it's gonna
Speaker 1: have to be stuff that has lots of different static screens.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, unless they have other plans, I think that
Speaker 1: we're gonna see things like UM text based adventures. Zorike
Speaker 1: is making a big comeback. Why not, UM, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And then the third thing, UM, one thing that I
Speaker 1: saw people complain about about the Eye books thing is
Speaker 1: that the cost of the books is going back up. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because Amazon. Amazon is buying the books from the publishers
Speaker 1: and they're doing what they're doing with it. But Apple
Speaker 1: made a deal directly with the publishers, which is to
Speaker 1: the publisher's advantage and now that and and I think
Speaker 1: that's going to change the kindle experience too, because their agreements.
Speaker 1: Once these things settle in, now that it's public knowledge
Speaker 1: that Apple is working with these publishers, that's gonna force
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble and Amazon into a bit of a
Speaker 1: pricing struggle because well, possibly there's no there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: of that, but I have the feeling it's gonna put
Speaker 1: some pressure on them if the iPad is successful, and
Speaker 1: I have no doubts that it will be. But if
Speaker 1: the iPad is successful, then it's gonna then the publishers
Speaker 1: will have the leverage because they'll say, hey, we can
Speaker 1: just move over here to this, and then it'll become
Speaker 1: the standard and everybody will use that. They can play
Speaker 1: Apple off of everybody else. But if no one buys
Speaker 1: the iPad, or if the iPad is just kind of
Speaker 1: a uh, you know, if it gets some popularity but
Speaker 1: it doesn't hit the mainstream consciousness, and if people aren't
Speaker 1: don't start buying books on the iPad, then the publishers
Speaker 1: are stuck with a model where, yeah, they can price
Speaker 1: books the way they want and they get the deal
Speaker 1: the way they want. But no one's buying the books,
Speaker 1: so then they end up having to crawl back to
Speaker 1: Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Oh, by the way, publishers
Speaker 1: don't crawl. Um, well I have people to do that
Speaker 1: for them. Well, I'm also interested to see, I mean,
Speaker 1: since it's still early daysa I'm interested to see if
Speaker 1: there's an eye Books app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll be interesting. They've got the Kindle app for the iPhone,
Speaker 1: so now you're wondering if that's gonna presume it would
Speaker 1: come to the iPad. One thing I wanted to point
Speaker 1: out that I thought was kind of cool. You mentioned
Speaker 1: it earlier about how being able to use iPod UH
Speaker 1: applications on the iPad. It has has two different modes.
Speaker 1: You can view it in a smaller windows, so essentially
Speaker 1: you're looking at it as if it were on an
Speaker 1: iPod Touch or on an iPhone, which I'm sure it'll
Speaker 1: be very strange. Or you can increase its size so
Speaker 1: that it's looking more natural On the iPad. It doubles
Speaker 1: the pixels. It's gonna look Yeah, it's gonna look a
Speaker 1: little blocky. The resolution is not going to be as
Speaker 1: good but it does does increase the size so that
Speaker 1: you can view it in a in a larger frame.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was kind of neat. Um, But
Speaker 1: we had a question in that email, okay, Jason Callicannis.
Speaker 1: So what Calicanis did was he claimed that he got
Speaker 1: hold of the iPad early on, and in that claim,
Speaker 1: he said that the device had two cameras, an hd
Speaker 1: TV tuner, thumb pad, user interface on either side, had
Speaker 1: fingerprint recognitions for security measures. Um. It connected through other
Speaker 1: to other devices through WiFi, so you could have like
Speaker 1: a networked gaming session with a whole bunch of people.
Speaker 1: He said that the gaming would be huge. Um. He
Speaker 1: said it had a solar panel on the back to
Speaker 1: recharge because it only had like four hours worth of
Speaker 1: gaming life in it, but the solar panel had unprecedented
Speaker 1: charging capabilities. Turns out he was just joking. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was all just a joke. And people have claimed otherwise,
Speaker 1: saying that it was a ploy for him to get
Speaker 1: lots and lots of Twitter followers and that this was
Speaker 1: really just kind of a dirty, underhanded way of trying
Speaker 1: to to boost his popularity. I don't know Mr Calicanus personally.
Speaker 1: I have corresponded with him in the past, and I've
Speaker 1: listened to a lot of his discussions on various shows.
Speaker 1: I'm fairly confident in saying that, uh, that this was
Speaker 1: probably just a joke. It wasn't necessarily meant as a
Speaker 1: publicity stunt to get him his name over because his
Speaker 1: publicity stunts are far more transparent. He has done them
Speaker 1: in the past by doing lots of giveaways and things
Speaker 1: like that, so Calicanus is not above doing that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But I think I think in this case,
Speaker 1: it was just him being silly. He was just trying
Speaker 1: to create the most ridiculously uh lavish tablet idea possible
Speaker 1: and then see if anyone would would buy it. And
Speaker 1: he gave people lots of outs, lots of clues that
Speaker 1: this was just a joke, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: bought it anyway, and then we're upset when they found
Speaker 1: out later that it wasn't true. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think this was I don't think he broke any kind
Speaker 1: of code of ethics or unwritten code of the Internet.
Speaker 1: The unwritten code of the internet's very serious and if
Speaker 1: you break it, we will find you. But Internet, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and we can't tell you what the rules are, but
Speaker 1: we can tell you you don't want to break them.
Speaker 1: Uh so, but yeah, I think this was just a
Speaker 1: case of a joke gone kind of too far. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I read the original post and I just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how anyone necessarily believe this, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that after two years of waiting, you kind
Speaker 1: of believe anything. Yeah. So, um, well, that's that's our
Speaker 1: our initial discussion of the iPad. Of course, we have
Speaker 1: neither of us have had the chance to get one
Speaker 1: in our hands yet. Actually, very very few people have
Speaker 1: at this point. And uh, you know, people ask us
Speaker 1: all the time on Twitter and an email and on
Speaker 1: the blogs what we think is this means, and we
Speaker 1: can honestly, we can really only conjecture at this point,
Speaker 1: where it's gonna take some time before the public can
Speaker 1: really get their hands on it and developers can develop
Speaker 1: for it. Some Apple stores might have some demo models
Speaker 1: out now, but I haven't tried to check it out yet,
Speaker 1: just because it's been a crazy week. But uh, maybe
Speaker 1: when I get my hands on it, I will Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll get it, you know, maybe I'll see And I
Speaker 1: think that I think it's really, really aggressively for an
Speaker 1: Apple product it is, and so I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: help it out a lot too. And as I said,
Speaker 1: there's probably a market out there that I just don't
Speaker 1: understand that will eat this up and maybe they'll use
Speaker 1: it forever. But I just see it as a flash
Speaker 1: in the pan ultimately. And there's all there's also an
Speaker 1: anti Apple market, and they've been very vocal in saying
Speaker 1: it's just a piece of junk. Right. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a piece sure, And maybe, like I said, maybe
Speaker 1: when I hold it, maybe I'll say that, you know what,
Speaker 1: I was totally wrong. I want one, and I can
Speaker 1: see why I would use it, and that could still happen. Uh,
Speaker 1: So don't write me and say that I hate Apple.
Speaker 1: I don't hate Apple. I own Apple products and uh
Speaker 1: and and I'm willing to be proven wrong. But the
Speaker 1: tablet format for me has never really made sense. And
Speaker 1: that goes beyond Apple that I'm talking about across manufacturers.
Speaker 1: The only tablet like device I've been tempted to get
Speaker 1: is the Lenovo you won. Because it's also a netbook
Speaker 1: for notebook, I shouldn't call it a netbook because Lenovo
Speaker 1: will say I broke one of those rules, and then
Speaker 1: Neilson someone after that. That is a very nifty device.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that wraps up our very long discussion
Speaker 1: about the iPad and leads us to a little more
Speaker 1: listener mail. This listener mail comes from Kate, and Kate says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention one of my favorite Easter eggs
Speaker 1: of days past. It's changed now, but a few years
Speaker 1: ago you could type the word failure into Google and
Speaker 1: click I'm feeling lucky, and it would take you directly
Speaker 1: to the official white House dot gov bio of George W. Bush.
Speaker 1: It always made me giggle. Kate. The reason why I
Speaker 1: did this was to correct a little bit. Really, that's
Speaker 1: not an Easter egg. That's not an Easter egg. No. No.
Speaker 1: The way it worked was that people essentially gained the
Speaker 1: system so that when you typed in failure the top,
Speaker 1: the top link would come up as white House dot gov,
Speaker 1: and people would click on that right to make it
Speaker 1: a higher search rank, or they would link to it,
Speaker 1: you know that. So it was it was not necessarily
Speaker 1: Google making a political statement. When you click the I'm
Speaker 1: feeling lucky, it essentially takes you to the top the
Speaker 1: other top search result for whatever the term is. So
Speaker 1: that was not necessarily Google putting something into the the
Speaker 1: algorithm specifically as a political statement. And it wasn't anybody
Speaker 1: messing with the White House website, right, It was third
Speaker 1: party people. I mean, I guess theoretically could have been
Speaker 1: someone in Google who did it, but as far as
Speaker 1: I've read, no one is willing to cop to it,
Speaker 1: so it may just have been a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who very diligently worked so that failure would lead to
Speaker 1: that bio. So I don't think that necessarily counts as
Speaker 1: an Easter egg. So if you guys want to send
Speaker 1: us some comments, questions you want to yell at me
Speaker 1: because you think I hate Apple, rite us our addresses
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. Check out
Speaker 1: our blogs, check out our live show, check out the
Speaker 1: website because we got tons of cool articles on their trust.
Speaker 1: This will have an iPad article up as soon as
Speaker 1: it is possible to do so, and Chris and I
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out the new
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