iPad link round-up, the day after

Well, yesterday, Apple announced the iPad, and since then, my feed reader has been on fire with iPad-related content. It seems like everybody (and their mother) is weighing in, and I've been doing my best trying to read it all. And without further ado, here are the links from today that I though were worth merit:

• The iPad Is Like Holding The Future. But Only Because I Graduated From iPhone School.: Good piece from MG Sielger, including this bit about Flash:

  "Does it have Flash? No. But while that used to be an issue for me when the iPhone first launched, I never think about it anymore. All of YouTube is available through the YouTube app, and I'd bet that sooner or later we'll see a Hulu app as well."

  Indeed.

• Insanely great? Ars reacts to the Apple iPad: Ars nails it:

  "It's just that this launch is closer to that of the original iPod — the idea itself isn't exactly new, competing offerings seem arguably better in some respects, and Apple will have to set itself apart from the pack by delivering a superior user and e-commerce experience. In other words, the iPad isn't going to waltz in and just change the world the way that its smaller predecessor, the iPhone, did. It'll have to fight its way to the top, like the iPod."

  Also, on page 3, John Siracusa writes:

  "The second disappointment is the relative dearth of big content deals. I'm sure more will be announced as the months and years pass, but I would have liked a stronger showing in this area, something that measures up to the iTunes music store announcement in 2003 that had all the major labels onboard."

  I was surprised by this also. I thought Apple would have lots of content (books, magazines, newspapers, comics, etc.) set to go as one of the strongest selling points of the iPad out of the gate. Instead, the iPad's eBook reader, iBooks, was buried towards the end of the presentation, and really didn't get all that much time. It almost didn't seem as important.

• On the iPad: This is the smartest bit of anti-iPad criticism that I've read all day, from Alex Payne (of Twitter). Quote:

  "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. I wouldn't have been able to fire up ResEdit and edit out the Mac startup sound so I could tinker on the computer at all hours without waking my parents. The iPad may be a boon to traditional eduction, insofar as it allows for multimedia textbooks and such, but in its current form, it's a detriment to the sort of hacker culture that has propelled the digital economy."

  It took me awhile to get this, but in essence, if the iPad (and devices like it) take off, then we'll be doing a huge disservice to the next generation of computer scientists. Hopefully, it will someday be possible to write code (and learn how computers work) with only an iPad at your disposal.

• Is Apple Evil?: I like Aaron Swartz (and have linked to him before), and I here he echos a common sentiment in today's digestion of the iPad announcement. But I think it's important to remember two things:

  1. Apple doesn't control what web pages an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can view, and
  2. The future of applications is clearly on the web
  This is why Apple's gatekeeper approach doesn't worry me too much, at this stage.

• The iPad Is For Everyone But Us: I'm seeing this sentiment a lot, but I think that it's flawed. Apple wants the iPad to be for everybody. It's just that certain people might need to have a computer too. But that's why the iPad starts at just $500.

• Hands-on, first impressions, and Photo gallery of Apple iPad: Not mentioned anywhere on Apple's site, but according to Ars Technica the iPad will support bluetooth keyboards. Interesting, and clearly something that I got wrong with my predictions.

• Fujitsu: iPad name "is ours": Actually, Fujitsu, it's Apple's now. Just ask Cisco.

• iPhone Developer License Points to New Devices?: More hints at what's to come:

  "But could this seemingly minor change in terminology foreshadow a more significant sea change in Apple's product line? To those of us watching Apple closely over the last 25 years, it seems clear that these iPhone OS devices are really what Steve Jobs has always wanted a computer to be, ever since the early days of the Macintosh. While still acknowledging that Apple can't provide every piece of functionality on its own, the iPhone OS devices are as close to appliances as you can get, and far more so than Macs."

• Pretend you're Apple: Smart writing from Brent Simmons (author of my beloved NetNewsWire):

  "You see the rise of web apps, and you notice people talking about how desktop apps are done. Desktop apps are done because, with web apps, people can login from anywhere, any machine, and get to their stuff. That's cool, and you know it's cool."

  The whole thing is worth a read, and gives some nice context for how Apple is starting 2010, and what we're likely to see in computing for the next decade.

• Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad: And of course, no round-up of iPad links wouldn't be complete without John Gruber. Here, he puts the iPad in context:

  "That's not to say there aren't trade-offs involved. Car enthusiasts (and genuine experts like race car drivers) still drive cars with manual transmissions. They offer more control; they're more efficient. But the vast majority of cars sold today (in the U.S. at least) are automatics. So too it'll be with computers. Eventually, most will be like the iPad in terms of the degree to which the underlying computer is abstracted away. Manual computers, like the Mac and Windows PCs, will slowly shift from the standard to the niche, something of interest only to experts and enthusiasts and developers."

  And this bit was also interesting:

  "Lastly, a thought regarding the iPad’s aggressive pricing. Apple is obviously leaving money on the table here. They could easily charge $999 as the starting price and have hundreds of people lined up outside every Apple Store ready to buy one on day one. Then they could drop the price later in the year, as the holiday season approaches.

  Clearly they’re more interested in unit sales than per-unit margin. The mobile computing landscape is in land-grab mode, and Apple is trying to stake out a long-term dominating position."

  I think this is why the iPad doesn't have a camera — Apple was intent on getting the core of the functionality necessary, while sticking to the $500 price point.

• The iPad Big Picture: And this one, as well. The summary is just great:

  "And so my takeaway from this — with the bragging about making their own CPUs and their annual revenue and their size compared to companies like Sony, Samsung, and Nokia — is that this is Apple's way of asserting that they're taking over the penthouse suite as the strongest and best company in the whole ones-and-zeroes racket."

  The fact that Apple is doing their own CPUs is just profound, and I don't think that we all understand the full meaning of this yet.

That just about covers the iPad, or the coverage of the iPad anyway, without actually saying what I think. ;)

-Andy.