Steve Jobs: Let the iPad Stand Alone

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 02:56:54 GMT  <== Computers ==> 

I didn't buy an iPad when it was released last Saturday, but I've read a lot about it, and looked at unboxing slide shows and videos. It seems to me that it could be the only computer for my mom, or my wife, but for one little problem: when you turn it on, it requires you to plug it into a Mac or Windows computer with iTunes, in order to enable it. And you need that other computer to back it up. I see no reason for that. It should be able to connect to Apple's iTunes site through any local Wifi router, and register and be unlocked that way. It should also be able to use an external USB flash drive, or disk drive, for backup and for added media storage. I don't think there are any technical barriers to this. It's just how Apple decided to design it.

My vision of the home computer of the near future: a cable or DSL modem, a wifi router, e.g. Apple's AirPort, a powered USB hub, a portable disk drive, a pair of speakers, an iPad keyboard dock, and an iPad. Other iPads around the house, also able to use that portable disk drive for backup and extra media storage.

I hope that Apple will make this so. I'd really like for the iPad to be my mom's next full-time computer.

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Comments (3):

Good news, bad news.

Submitted by Don Galt on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 03:54:15 GMT

Apple's moving in the right direction here. They are building a huge data center, and on the 3G ipad you can activate the 3G service from the device itself. This is a big improvement over the way things started out-- the original iPhone had to be activated by an AT&T employee or Apple employee;.... and being able to do it with an apple employee at all was a big coup for apple.

Apple's still figuring out how to do online services. They are great at hardware and software but not happy with the online stuff. So give them a couple years and the ipad will be a cloud device.

USB is a different matter. To be a USB host (which is what you're asking) requires implementing a lot of things that for various reasons are not good for a mobile device. Not just the cost and complexity, but dealing with the massive battery drain. People run hard drives off of USB! While you can do it with a laptop, its not quite there for iPads.

All the aspects of technology seem to advance very fast, except batteries. performance can double, storage density can double, and yet over the same period batteries will improve by %20.

Batteries are the primary limiting factor in mobile devices. The iPad has great battery life because it is disproportionately battery inside.

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PS your user verification code is hard-- I'm a human and I have trouble reading it! Might try backing off the settings or using askimet. Here goes the 5th try

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Note that one part of my

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:56:24 GMT

Note that one part of my envisioned desktop was a powered USB hub. It appears that in its current configuration, the iPad requires an ultra-powered hub, one that can provide more than the specified maximum of 500ma of current. I think they can handle the software side of being a USB host. That's costs only memory.

As to the user verification code, I'd probably have to upgrade my now very-old version of Drupal to get another one, which requires me to upgrade or abandon my customizations. Or work in another package myself. My current captcha package has no settings I can change, except whether to use it for registration, unregistered comments, and registered comments. I've turned it off for now, and will judge over the next few days whether I get more spam registrations and comments than I'm already getting.

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I re-enabled the captcha

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:05:22 GMT

I re-enabled the captcha for registration and anonymous comments. I usually get 2 or 3 comment spams a day, which appear to be from people paid to write comment spam. In the three hours since I disabled the captcha, I got 35 comment spams.

It is possible that I can find a captcha font that's a little easier to read. I'll look around.

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