11 thoughts on “FriendFeed: Ladies and gentlemen: …”

  1. Brendan Loy

    You know, visually, it has a pretty thick black border. Seems like they’re giving away a lot of pixels there. I suppose there’s probably a technical reason for that, relating to what’s underneath the glass or whatever. But still.

  3. B. Minich

    My guess? A place to put your fingers that doesn’t trigger the screen.

    I can’t imagine the number of complaints if just holding this thing triggered you to quit a program, or suddenly change a song. The black space there seems like giving enough space to grasp the sides comfortably without actually touching the working screen space.

  5. David K.

    Plus it gives them more room to work with without having to pay for a bigger and more expensive screen, but i think B. Minich is on the right track. You can hold an iPhone/iPod touch in the palm of your hand, but this, you’ll need to hold more like a book.

    My take? Its going to be atleast a mildly succesful consumer device. Gadget blogs and freaks are going to bitch and moan because it doesn’t do all the things they wanted, which frankly are not what MOST users need/want. They will proclaim it a failure and then be shocked when no-nerds buy it up. If you are a web browsing/e-mailing/video watching consumer who has occasional need to do some document work, this is going to be a great low end device for you, far better than a netbook. If you are a power user? Wait for the iPad Pro with 64 intel xeon processors, holographic display, telepathic communication, and back ground apps.

  7. B. Minich

    The big complaints I’ve seen are: 1. No FLASH!!!!! (This is a plus for me. Anything to get Flash out of our lives is a good thing.) 2. No multitasking. This is a geek complaint. Most people don’t care.

    I personally like this. It won’t replace my current computer. But I think it is a capable device, and a very convenient one. The complaints strike me as the ones that Slashdot made about the iPod when it was first released: “No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.” The geeks who are trashing this are going to feel the same way about this as Slashdot did about the iPod. I don’t know if it’ll have the success of the iPod . . . but it will have success.

    (Let me also say I LOVE the data plans. No contract? $30 a month? No need to switch cell carriers to use this? Dude . . . I’m tempted to cancel my internet and use an iPad, but have to wait until I’ve had it a year, I think.)

  8. Jazz

    But what of the name? Obviously Apple is playing off their awesome equity in the IPod, and it will probably work, but the name IPad feels clunky. Here are the connotations of the word “Pad” among the target market of this product:

    1) A place where sexy, 70s-era swingers hang out. This makes the target market nervous.

    2) What sticks up on the bottom of upraised fingers when neanderthals’ knuckles drag The last thing the target market saw just before they got beat up behind the gym.

    3) (Finance) The amount that they put into forecasts to hedge against the fact that they aren’t actually all that good at forecasting.

  9. David K.

    @ B. Minich:

    RE: Flash. No Flash isn’t a bug, its a feature and a damn good one as far as I’m concerned. Flash is used for many things, its useful for precisely one thing, casual web games. Its not good for web site interfaces. Its not good for video. Its not good for ads. We have technologies for video and web sites that don’t depend on proprietary technologies. Flash can live for playing games, thats it.

    @Jazz
    People laughed at the Wii name too, in the end it didn’t matter. iPod? How did that ever evoke music player? But the products success ended up making the name definitive.

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