Comments on: Additional thoughts on the iPad http://mark.madsenlab.org/2010/02/additional-thoughts-on-the-ipad.html#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed Scientia non habet inimicum nisi ignorantem Sun, 31 Jul 2011 00:01:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 By: admin http://mark.madsenlab.org/2010/02/additional-thoughts-on-the-ipad.html/comment-page-1#comment-5865 admin Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:12:23 +0000 http://mark.madsenlab.org/?p=1033#comment-5865 Steve - I definitely agree. Apple consistently demonstrates an ability to iterate to success, as you say. But sure, I was as shocked as everyone else at some of the choices. What's really tough is not being given any rationale for some of the choices, not necessarily just the choices themselves. That's the trouble with this pre-launch announcement business, right? If they were launching the device the same day, then you'd expect a schedule of interviews over the following days from various VP's dealing with the hardware and software choices, which mainstream users would ignore, but would be targeted at geeks, pundits, and developers, where somebody would say, "the camera is clearly an important feature, but listen, we faced some design conflicts this time, so rather than given you a substandard battery life, we decided to push that off a bit." Or whatever. Instead, we geeks are sitting here with a list of things that seemed to be no-brainers and no actual rationales. And yeah, this is clearly "potential" goodness rather than the real thing. But then, I still have my Gen 2 iPod with the black and white text screen and the click wheel. I don't use it, but it's a useful museum piece to remind us how very serious "iteration" can be in a very short time frame.... Steve – I definitely agree. Apple consistently demonstrates an ability to iterate to success, as you say.

But sure, I was as shocked as everyone else at some of the choices. What’s really tough is not being given any rationale for some of the choices, not necessarily just the choices themselves. That’s the trouble with this pre-launch announcement business, right? If they were launching the device the same day, then you’d expect a schedule of interviews over the following days from various VP’s dealing with the hardware and software choices, which mainstream users would ignore, but would be targeted at geeks, pundits, and developers, where somebody would say, “the camera is clearly an important feature, but listen, we faced some design conflicts this time, so rather than given you a substandard battery life, we decided to push that off a bit.” Or whatever.

Instead, we geeks are sitting here with a list of things that seemed to be no-brainers and no actual rationales.

And yeah, this is clearly “potential” goodness rather than the real thing. But then, I still have my Gen 2 iPod with the black and white text screen and the click wheel. I don’t use it, but it’s a useful museum piece to remind us how very serious “iteration” can be in a very short time frame….

]]> By: Stephen Speicher http://mark.madsenlab.org/2010/02/additional-thoughts-on-the-ipad.html/comment-page-1#comment-5863 Stephen Speicher Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:18:00 +0000 http://mark.madsenlab.org/?p=1033#comment-5863 It's a perfectly fine analysis. The only thing that I would say is that it's possible to both think that a) Apple will iterate to success (a typical Microsoft strategy) AND b) be amazed at some of the initial choices. The two most obvious are a) lack of a front facing camera for video conferencing and b) the idea that Apple thinks that i) music consumption ii) phone usage and iii) tablet computing should all be done EXACTLY the same. That's a bizarre notion for a company usually so intouch with their users. I understand a very similar paradigm, but EXACTLY the same? I was disappointed to see the lack of software thought. Leading up to the event we kept hearing that the real magic would be in the software. In the end, there was absolutely no thought paid to the software. There was no innovation. It was just Apple building a very very nicely put together device. Anyhoo... It’s a perfectly fine analysis. The only thing that I would say is that it’s possible to both think that a) Apple will iterate to success (a typical Microsoft strategy) AND b) be amazed at some of the initial choices.

The two most obvious are a) lack of a front facing camera for video conferencing and b) the idea that Apple thinks that i) music consumption ii) phone usage and iii) tablet computing should all be done EXACTLY the same. That’s a bizarre notion for a company usually so intouch with their users. I understand a very similar paradigm, but EXACTLY the same? I was disappointed to see the lack of software thought. Leading up to the event we kept hearing that the real magic would be in the software. In the end, there was absolutely no thought paid to the software. There was no innovation. It was just Apple building a very very nicely put together device.

Anyhoo…

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