Apple Unveils the iDud

[Greg Peterson]

Ultimately the IPad will be a game changer. It will require a killer app however. And future generations will need to step up functionality (phone, camera...).

Apple is as equally adept at marketing as they are in tightly controlling the design of their products. Of course their products are not without issue, but many of the Apple crowd seem to take such criticism personally.

The boss just bought a Macbook Air. After applying an OS update and rebooting I couldn't get the machine to join the WiFi network. It could see it just fine. Try as I might it failed to join. Finally, after rebooting again, it joined just fine. And I thought only PC's needed this treatment. Even my IPod nano requires a restore on occasion.

I will admit that generally Mac's are more reliable than their PC counterparts. But considering the virtually finite and defined confines of their operating environment, this degree of reliability should be expected.

The IPad will launch a fleet of competitors. I think it will be a big hit.

[Pat Germain]

Fox News has a slideshow of failed Apple products. Some I had forgotten. Some I had never heard of:

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/us/...misses?slide=1

[Tim Morton]

Fox News has a slideshow of failed Apple products. Some I had forgotten. Some I had never heard of:

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/us/...misses?slide=1

interesting...i wonder who made the call on what was a failed product?

The cube was a huge hit, and still quite popular among its owners....it evolved into the mini which is still one the cheapest bang for your buck computer options.

The clones in the day where better hardware than what apple produced...steve jobs saw this and shut them down...hardly would consider Power Computing to be a failed computer.

[Pat Germain]

The clones in the day where better hardware than what apple produced...steve jobs saw this and shut them down...hardly would consider Power Computing to be a failed computer.

Do you relly think the clones were better? One of my coworkers bought a brand new Power PC and it was slow; dog slow. Perhaps he just had a lousy example.

[Tim Morton]

Do you relly think the clones were better? One of my coworkers bought a brand new Power PC and it was slow; dog slow. Perhaps he just had a lousy example.

The Power Computing powertower and especially powertower pros that i used, were definitely better machines than their apple counterpart.

There might have been some lower end home versions like the powerwave models that were competing with the performa line...i did not have any experience with that line.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/powe...ac-clones.html

[John Coloccia]

Fox News has a slideshow of failed Apple products. Some I had forgotten. Some I had never heard of:

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/us/...misses?slide=1

And they didn't even remember the Lisa.

[Eric Franklin]

Fox News has a slideshow of failed Apple products. Some I had forgotten. Some I had never heard of:

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/us/...misses?slide=1

What's interesting is that only 2 of those were released when Steve Jobs was CEO.

I would agree with Tim that the cube wan't a failure. The biggest problem with the cube was the price.

[Greg Peterson]

I read a book on the history of Apple some years ago. There is little doubt in my mind that were it not for Apple, Apple would have been the number one computer/software company in the world.

They spent so much money on developing technology only to pull the plug right before the product was ready to go to market.

Quicktime - They gave it away because the big wigs wanted to change direction and didn't see a value in it. Quicktime completely changed computing. It might very well have been an even bigger deal than Lotus. Remember how computers in the early 90's were classified as 'multi-media'? We can thank Quicktime for that.

Apple and IBM teamed up and designed and built a prototype machine that would run Windows and Apples OS. The team was given the near impossible task of designing and building an operational prototype in just six months. They delivered on time only to have the CEO at the time pull the plug on the project.

There were numerous other examples that in hindsight clearly demonstrate how at times Apple was essentially a luxury liner being piloted by Mr. Magoo.

[Bryan Morgan]

Maybe the mods need to ban "apple conversations" along with politics and religion.

Well, being that Apple is pretty much a cult.........kind of IS a religion

I manage a pretty sizeable network which includes plenty of Apple products (several hundred nodes spread out around So. Cal.). I just don't get the hype. I have an ipod and its great, never will own an iphone because its just not useful to me. I get to play with them all the time as our sales staff and whatever other person who has to have the "coolest" gadget brings them to me to setup on our network....though they are usually replaced with Blackberrys within a few weeks... I don't hate Apple or anything, I just don't get all the hype and zealots.

[Bryan Morgan]

I will admit that generally Mac's are more reliable than their PC counterparts. But considering the virtually finite and defined confines of their operating environment, this degree of reliability should be expected.

I've gone through thousands of computers at work including many Macs. In my experience they aren't any more or less reliable than anything else. They are just computers. Most computers nowdays are built pretty solid and most OSs I use are pretty good these days (with the exception of Vista, at least until recently).

[Tim Morton]

Well, being that Apple is pretty much a cult.........kind of IS a religion

I manage a pretty sizeable network which includes plenty of Apple products (several hundred nodes spread out around So. Cal.). I just don't get the hype. I have an ipod and its great, never will own an iphone because its just not useful to me. I get to play with them all the time as our sales staff and whatever other person who has to have the "coolest" gadget brings them to me to setup on our network....though they are usually replaced with Blackberrys within a few weeks... I don't hate Apple or anything, I just don't get all the hype and zealots.

Maybe i am wrong...but i don't see it as Apple kool-aid drinkers always running around talking up how great apple products are...even though yes they are GREAT

Look at this thread...it was started by someone saying the iPad sucks...thats right a product that has not even been released yet sucks. It seems every product apple releases gets the same thing...people love to come out of the woodwork to put them down, and apple people see this and then chime in...if that makes us zeolets then so be it.

I also love the millions of " Hey i got a virus and my PC won't do this any more ( insert problem here).

Or gee i just bought a brand new PC and i can't get it to print...

So then an apple guy will generally say...well maybe if you are having so much trouble with PC's you shuld maybe look at the mac OS...sure they cost more, but here are 10 reasons why they might be easier for you to use.

I have not seen one post started anywhere saying ...The iPad is the greatest thing ever...you must buy one!!!!!"

Of course i don't see many where people start threads saying ...Thank god i got rid of my imac finally...what a piece of crap...i am so much happier now with my Dell INspiron desktop " either...

[John Coloccia]

I didn't exactly say it sucked. I said I thought it was a dud. For the record, my living room has a Mac Mini, I have a Macbook Pro, and I'm typing this on my iPhone, so I think it's a little unfair to group me in with the apple bashers, no?

I can look at a feature set and decide if I think something is useful without having bought it first. I'm sorry but to me it seems likes a terribly unfocused effort, kind of like, "Hey, look at this neat thing that we made", but it doesn't really fill a niche. Perhaps they're trying to create one, but I don't see it. Is anyone really going to read a book with a 1.5lb piece of glass on their lap?

The major failing IMHO, is that it doesn't have a phone. If it had a phone, it would replace my iPhone, and on trips I only needed e-mail, it would replace my laptop. Instead, it replaces NOTHING for me. I still need my iPhone, and thus I have e-mail on that. If I need my laptop, it's because I need something other than just e-mail. I have to carry this in addition to my other devices, not instead of. If it had a phone in it, I would probably buy it. Simple as that, and that's what I mean when I said it's unfocused. It doesn't seem to fit any niche just right. It doesn't replace the laptop by any stretch, and it doesn't replace the portable phone/PDA thing. It's something that you need in addition to everything else, and if most people are like me, they're looking to simplify their lives, not make them more complex.

[Mike Cutler]

The biggest problem with the cube was the price.

Actually, the biggest problem with the cube was heat dissipation. The cube would overheat the processor. The newer generations since, ie. the Mac Mini, have external power supplies, and not a combination of power supplies both internal and external to the enclosure.

I've had Mac's for 12 -13 years now. They are just as functional as PC's, although the PC is still better for pirating DVD's., With Mac's you just have a different set of issues to deal with than a PC.
I do find it interesting that whenever a parade of Apple failures is demonstrated, they are, by in large, on products and platforms 10-15 years out of date.

I'll admit that I don't get the iPad, but then I see no reason to have an iPhone, or a Blackberry, or a Droid. That's just me though.
I'm going to assume that some marketing research has shown that a significant market share of consumers are not interested in a computers capability, or expansion, and only care about fundamental uses like eMail, surfing, and other net based applications, and don't want to worry with the hassle of upgrading.
I'm certain that as each new generation comes out, it will be tailored to meet current market demands, and this is where Apple sometimes falls down, very hard. They stop supporting previous generations of hardware very quickly, which forces a new hardware purchase, or the purchase of an " Adapter" that somehow can't be a function of the newer hardware and is of course proprietary and only available through Apple initially. They're really kind of bad about this. Video components seem to be very quickly abandoned. I state this from much experience in dealing with these issues.

A lot of us here work in industries where computers are an integrated part of our work routine, so we are comfortable with them. A lot of folks though are not.
People don't like it when they load an "Automatic Software Update", either Mac or PC, because both are equally notorious for it, and all of the sudden software programs or peripherals stop working, and they end up spending the better part of a weekend day searching out software/firmware updates for their peripherals so that functionality can be restored. A lot of people just "want the thing to work". I see the iPad as a viable purchase for them. Me, I'll stick with my 7 year old powerbook.

People have been betting against Apple for a decade now. A look at the stock performance over that time would indicate that Apple seems to be doing something correct.

Time will tell if the iPad is a success.I wouldn't buy the first generation though.

[Eric DeSilva]

Look at this thread...it was started by someone saying the iPad sucks...thats right a product that has not even been released yet sucks. It seems every product apple releases gets the same thing...people love to come out of the woodwork to put them down, and apple people see this and then chime in...if that makes us zeolets then so be it.

No Tim, it wasn't started that way. No one in the entire thread has said this device sucks. In fact, most people have said they harbor a fair amount of respect for Apple products.

If you go back and look, you might find that the more aggressive posts have been the pro-Apple ones, yours included. And, I see no reason why intelligent people aren't allowed to talk about how they perceive a device that hasn't been released. People do it all the time. Why is the iPad not fair game? I watched a rather lengthy product intro and have read a considerable number of reviews and the product specs on Apple's page. It isn't like we aren't talking about a known quantity.

Go back and read the whole thread again. Try and be objective. Seems to me the Apple crowd has been a little thin-skinned about very legitimate questions about Apple's decision making on this product about features and functionality and where it fits into the mobile and computing matrix.

[Greg Peterson]

I have not seen one post started anywhere saying ...The iPad is the greatest thing ever...you must buy one!!!!!"

First post on this page reads:
"Ultimately the IPad will be a game changer. It will require a killer app however. And future generations will need to step up functionality (phone, camera...)."

I guess I didn't say it's the greatest thing ever, but I do think it is a revolutionary product.

Having worked with Apple's OS and Windows, I just don't see where one OS is better than the other. It's a matter of personal preference at this juncture.