iPad v1 - Not for me

So Apple's latest and greatest product reminds one of a feminine hygiene product, nice :-).

Before I start out this review I would like to state that I like apple products, and why not. They are for the most part excellent devices, well designed, excellently made and usually the most attractive device in their respective categories (and who doesn't like to hold pretty things).

Any ways that said I was very very excited about the fabled tablet because I really felt that this would be a device that I would buy, and it simply does not appeal to me. I was expecting a beautiful touch netbook, what I got was an over sized iPod Touch.

Here's what I think the iPad is missing -

• multitasking
• camera
• SD card slot
• USB port
  

Let me go through each of these and explain why I think they are important.

multitasking - this I think is where the iPad fails the most. Here's how I envisioned using the tablet - running some kind of script over a server (via a unix terminal), minimizing this window and then surfing the web, or reading a book, playing a game, etc. Since I am not running the script on the tablet it wouldn't be a resource hog (though I think the iPad is actually capable with its 1 GHz processor) and it would let me do other things as well. However this device in its current shape and form will not let me do this. Now even if I was not a geek, there's another application where this will fail big time. Remember that beautiful keynote presentation by Steve Jobs where he opens up youtube and displays a HD video. Now imagine opening that same HD vid on AT&T's amazing network while on the road, given that you cannot minimize the window and do something else for the next day while the video buffers, the only thing you can do is close the window or pray for some patience. I just hope that the next OS update brings multitasking to this device otherwise I see this as little more than a pretty gadget with little actual functional use.

camera - do I even need to explain why this is a huge disappointment. Come on, I know you want something for iPad2.0 but seriously did it have to be the camera??? This device could have been brilliant for video conferencing (or simply chatting), why give up something that would have added so much value?

SD card - this was just a cheap blow. I am willing to pay the obscene $130 for the 3G capability, but making three versions with more memory when you could just as easily have made a single device and allowed people to expand it using easily available flash memory is just unfair. I mean how about coming up with your own memory card, like how sony screws people with its card. That way you can still charge people for the memory but everyone can start off with a $499 or $599 device and upgrade as and when desired. To be honest 16GB would probably be more than enough for a device that was designed for work, but for something like the iPad which is so keyed into the entertainment side of things 16GB would barely hold my music to say nothing about any movies or shows.

USB port - this was actually something that did not initially bother me as much as the other things, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that having access to USB devices would have been very valuable. Almost everyone transports files, and data on USB drives. Given the limited memory of the iPad adding a USB port would have allowed one to expand its overall memory 2x, 4x, and more. Not just that but USB is so much ubiquitous today than bluetooth devices, I would much rather have had a USB port than bluetooth. I mean is this device a cellphone, no its not. Its got 10" of screen and plenty of bordering bezel so its got space to play with. So why not add a USB card and give this device some real flexibility.

Something I think the iPad will do brilliantly is books, and I dont mean as novels but I am thinking textbooks. But before this can happen on a large scale, I think we need something very important to happen. We need to find a way to allow people to trade and sell ebooks. Here's my concern, when I was studying the average textbook for my MS was priced between $50 - $150. The only way I could afford to buy these books was second-hand, unless apple finds a way to allow students to buy these texts second-hand, there is no way this device will find a permanent home in the student's life. A very interesting idea suggested to me was the following - libraries in Universities should rent out texts online (they already rent out DVD's and stuff), and these books should be available for the duration of the class. If you wish to hold on to the book for any longer then you need to either purchase the online version, or the hard copy. This would require someone to work together with the publishers, the authors and Universities but the final outcome would be very useful to the students, and to someone like apple.

Finally I would have really liked OSX on this thing rather than the iPhone OS, I am sure the iPhone OS is brilliant and all but seriously by linking the two devices you limit the flexibility of this device so much. With all the hoo hah about the app store I think people have forgotten that all these apps have pc or mac equivalents, and usually they are way better. This device has a 1GHz processor, that pretty fricking powerful why not give it a stripped down but functional OS which would take care of the multitasking, and also truly allow people to customize the device as they desire.

So will I buy this device in its current incarnation - not a chance. In the future (probably v2.0) may be, but I am guessing that's not going to happen for a year and I really need something in the near term. So I will wait, there are some very nice devices (the super cool Notion Ink Adam, MSI's tablet, or Lenovo's Ideapad) planned for the second half of this year. I might go for one of them, or just cough up the extra dough and buy me a macbook.

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status messages

So this is the newest craze going around on the internet... Updating your status message every 5 min or so... I have a friend who shall remain unnamed, his google status just switched to "Shower"... Now the first thing that popped in my head was - 'seriously, do I really need to know about this'... but then I started to think, and the next thought that came was maybe this is such a momentous event in this young mans life that it deserved mention, something akin to the birth of your first child maybe?

Of course this post is not to abuse my friend, but its to question this desire that everyone seems to have of putting their every move out on the intertoob... Dont get me wrong my status changes too but its more like a seasonal change, and honestly who really cares what you are doing every second of the day, if you do then I suggest it might be time to tie the knot...

Just a few days back I read how some prof or lawyer in UK came to the conclusion that the new gen, specifically ppl in the US, are putting so much of themselves on the internet that we might be losing our right to privacy. And this is a scary thought, what someone else does on their free time does not concern me. But when enough people do it for a long enough time to redefine something so fundamental as the privacy one is entitled to, then the issue begs a longer look at... We have also had two ppl who run some of the largest online corps come out against an individuals privacy and thats even more scary because it has implications on how the law interprets things.

Does our desire to put out information about us, automatically mean that we do not deserve to have privacy in our lives. The problem with making or interpreting laws is that it has to be general, so what I may think is completely private might be for someone else their front page news.

Question to be asked is how will twittering and status updates change something so fundamental as our right to privacy? I do not imagine people will stop updating their status messages, but maybe it might be time to rethink just how much of ourselves are we putting out there. And really the people who really want to know have other ways of finding out, and the ones who dont dont.

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instant gratification

I wanted to title this 'a masturbatory existence', but for the sake of a cleaner blog I decided against it. Its been one of those days which may or may not go down as a critical juncture in life, if only we could see these in advance. I feel like I have been in this ugly miasma which I entered all by myself and found myself glorifying as my existence. I do not believe that I will wake up tomorrow and find myself leading a completely new existence, but I believe that I might have seen something. A glimmer of light which may help me find my way out of the darkness. Maybe it took me dislocating my shoulder or maybe it took the love of my life telling me that I took too much for granted, including her, or maybe the pain from the first finally woke me enough from my addled sleep to listen to the words that this beautiful woman had been throwing my way for several months now.

When I was talking to her I had a thought and it was about humanity and how we have changed in the past two decades. There was a time when we knew that anything good took time and patience to make, that anything worthwhile was obtained with effort. But when I look at everything around me, and I do not exclude myself I see a shift in paradigm. Everyone wants everything, but no one is willing to work for it.

Instant gratification is the mantra and it is no longer looked as something bad but rather something to be desired. Everyone is looking for the resulting orgasm, without wondering if we are simply shooting blanks. Does any of this have any meaning? Does anything I have said have any meaning? I feel like I need to wake up or lose myself in a meaning existence devoid of joy and fulfillment.

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Teaching

Its not often that I am feeling as unwell as I am right now and I still am enjoying the hectic pace of life I am surrounded by, I think the reason for this is the fact that I really am enjoying the job that I have right now. Unlike last year where my job primarily consisted of nursing a temperamental telescope which didnt want to do what we were asking off it, this year I am being allowed to teach a lab to entry level students who many a time are taking this lab as an introduction to entering the world of Astronomy. The thought that I could influence some of them to choose this line for a career all at once scares me and overwhelms my senses.

Its like what happened with my mother when she called one day while I was teaching, when I did mention what I happened to be involved in all she could do was burst out laughing and I could even see her shaking her head in wonderment that her little boy was actually doing something as important and one with as much responsibility as teaching. I dont know if the novelty quickly wears off as it does in other jobs or if the wonderment sticks on for as long as you are involved with young and fresh minds, but I am willing to give it an opportunity and see what happens if I make this into a career option.

Its funny how I have always been worried that my fundamentals come prove to be insufficient and that the students would immediately point out the fact that I happen to know extremely little of the subject I attempt to teach them, but as I teach them I realise two things. One - I am not as stutpid as I thought I was, and that my basics are infact better then I gave it credit for and two - that the students are infact actually do know lesser then me and that for the lab that I am teaching I am pretty decently positioned to not make an ass out of myself. I also realise that while I am lazy (now thats an understatement) I still make the effort to teach that I do not make for other jobs. All jobs I have held before this have required me to force myself to go, this is the first job where I have had to force myself to wait for the class to being and tot not turn up an hour early.

All in all I am enjoying myself and with the Subject Test approaching I find myself actually making an effort to study as well. Though not enough...

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Back

Ahhh WOW is gone. World of warcraft and its addictive interface finally have left me or rather I have left them behind me. And as I pick up my life once more after the brief moments of my life when I didnt have a life, I look around me and realise how much time has passes by without me really living life.

I must say this much, if this is what the future holds for us then there isnt very much to look forward to . Why do I say this, the reason is because I have only recently left a world which tries to emulate and impersonate the real world, and while it does an awesome job at it it still doesnt represent the true environment we live in and I am glad that I am finally making an attempt to break the shackles laid upon me by the game. For those who dont realise how addictive these things are all I can say is that you'll aren't gamers and you wont understand how captivating these things can be.

I have begun preparations for my Subject GRE and in that I must say I fear for my future in that I really havent gotten to a stage where I am confident of facing the test. But then only time will state if I can overcome this test laid in front of me. The world awaits, only I can decide when I wish to take it on... For in this lifetime I know people will come to recognise the beauty that I see entrapped in the many faceted crystal that is LIFE!!!

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