UKC

Does anyone have one of these? I'm intrigued as, like most Apple kit, it's beautifully made and an "object of desire" (the Patagonia or Arcteryx of the IT world). And if you play with one it's fast and great to use.

However, I wonder if it's a really like an overblown iPhone (great tho that is) and hence, if you're going bigger, why not get something more functional like a small laptop or highspec netbook etc.

But the tablet form is rather nice and I can see myself wanting to use it around the home more than a laptop - which to be fair I mostly use for email and internet.

Not seriously thinkng of getting one but trying to figure out what's what with the small end of the PC market at the moment.

In reply to JonC: Niggle will be along shortly to say they're shit, but i love mine. Mostly use it for browsing and email, but it has a useable word processing programme and spreadsheet, and i have a bluetooth keyboard if i need to do proper work. The thing i like is its so small and light that i just lie on the sofa browsing, it's so much lighter than my laptop for when i'm travelling and Angry Birds is bloody brilliant!

In reply to JonC:
My mate has one and its pretty much replaced his laptop for his daily train journeys.

I had a play on the new macbook air range this weekend (I do like the apple store)and concluded it was a nice toy but too expensive for me!

In reply to andy:

that's sort of what I thought - but do you also, for example, have a laptop and iphone (or similar)?

ps: what's Angry Birds?

In reply to JonC:

Angry birds is 59p well spent! Nice simple puzzle game but I find it incredibly addictive.

In reply to JonC:

I keep toying with the idea, they're pretty handy but I think I'll wait for further development before committing although that's my usual policy with Apple anyway.

this is a handy site http://www.tuaw.com/tag/ipad

In reply to JonC: I have just given my laptop to mrs andy, hardly use my desktop now, and i also have an iphone - but browsing's miles better on an ipad.

In reply to andy:

browsing is what i mostly do at home - which is why i'm interested.

do you have the 3g version?

In reply to JonC: Yep. Mainly cos we don't have an open wifi signal at work, though a few mates reckon a mifi thing from 3.co.uk and a wifi one is better value.

In reply to JonC:

My boss and one of my colleagues have them - I'm rather envious, and I don't normally get excited about tech things. They look good for viewing photographs/online magazines, and apparently their iReader/eReader/Kindle/iBook (etc) capacity and capability is very good too.

In reply to JonC:
Back to my mate - he has the wifi only one but has a little 3g dongle that acts as a 3g -> wifi hotspot which he then connects to. I think for a while he was getting semi dodgy pre paid sim cards off of ebay to fuel the dongle but those days have gone now.

In reply to Mike_Watson_99: That's a mifi - but quite a few android phones will do the same trick.

In reply to andy:
Yes, thats the catchphrase I was thinking of.

In reply to JonC:
I have had one for a few months now and think it's great, for the following reasons:

1. Battery life is unsurpassable, even for battery-hungry uses.
2. It makes an excellent lightweight word processor, in that it's an excellent tool for churning out large quantities of text (partly due to the optional portrait screen orientation). With current software, not ideal for formatting-intensive word processing though.
3. It makes a decent web browser (but Safari is somewhat backward in certain respects).
4. Superb for reading e-books, watching movies, harvesting information off the Web.
5. Brilliant for mapping software, Google Earth, astronomical software etc.
6. A wide range of quality games at low prices
7. Simple and highly intuitive interface

However ...

1. You need a Bluetooth keyboard for serious text entry (although the onscreen one is surprisingly good for light use)
2. The operating system and software isn't quite there yet--many obvious steps that need to be taken
3. Despite being put forward as the 'perfect' way to view the web, a laptop with Firefox is always going to be a more powerful web browsing tool

It's not an out-and-out replacement for a laptop, but I find that it is perfectly capable of 99% of the tasks I used to use my laptop for. My laptop is now used only for mass storage of photos and other media, and for word processing tasks that require a more fully featured set of software.

In reply to Only a hill:

If you like Angry Birds get Cut the Rope it is brilliant as well

In reply to JonC:
Got the wife one for her birthday. She's a teacher and it's pretty much replaced both our home laptop (MacBook pro) and her work machine. She does all her planning on it and very rarely prints any of it off as it's light enough for her to stand and the front of the classroom and work from. Pages (the word processor app) is a beautiful bit of kit, go into an apple store and play with it, the autoformat function as you place images into a document is a thing of beauty.

It's also really handy for non work things like using as a recipe book in the kitchen (when I'm allowed to touch it!) and yes Angry Birds is great fun, I also heartily recommend Star Wars Trench Run :0)

It does have it's limitations, lack of Flash etc but we very rarely notice this. The vast majority of videos on UK Climbing even run on it.

I have an iPhone as well but am seriously considering buying a second iPad just for me!!

In reply to JonC: I would get one for my 6 week trips offshore if you could plug in a hard drive to transfer films & tv shows. 32Gb or 64Gb of films and tv series isn't enough to keep you entertained that long and needing to take a laptop to swap out the media you've got on there defeats the whole point of the thing.

In reply to chris j: I've got the widget that lets you plug a usb into it, but at the moment that only lets you import photos - OS4, maybe? The rumour is it'll allow wireless printing in OS4 (although you can get an app for that now) - but as mentioned i simply read stuff on screen.

I guess if you're off shore you don't have fast wifi? You could store vids on .mac and download them (or rent them from itunes?) if you did.

In reply to JonC:

I got one recently - the size and quality of the screen means it's excellent for web browsing and email on the move, and I will be to using it for photo viewing when on hols.

There are some really good apps, but you need to check out reviews and ask around to find out which are the ones worth getting.

The mi-fi from 3 is a small device with a sim card which allows access to the 3 network for data for up to 5 wi-fi devices. I think it's about £10 a month for 1GB of data. If you get one of these then you wouldn't need the 3G ipad version. The downside is that the mi-fi device needs to be kept charged and is something extra to have to carry around.

There are some things the iPad doesn't do well - you can't save a file that you are viewing in Safari, so you need a work around involving an app such as GoodReader. The process of file or image transfer to and from a PC or Mac is clunky (done via iTunes) and is not that intuitive to use. The size of the iPad means its usefulness as a portable music player is limited. The screen brightness can make your eyes tired after a long period of browsing or text reading.

In reply to Alan_2468:

If you have "pages" app safari gives you the option to open pdfs etc in pages as you're browsing it - then it'll save in "my documents". If you've not got pages and numbers i'd recommend them both.

And i transfer files to my mac by email (out of pages/numbers) although I also have a .mac account so i can store things on my iDisk and access them from any 'pooter with interweb access.

I think the The Register got it right... "Giant iPhone without the phone".

Anywhere I go that I could fit an iPad I'd rather take my netbook. But then I've got an ipod touch and an android phone for the other times.

Then again, Apple have a history of growing the market around the product and not the other way, so expect the iPad to be vital in about 4 years. It'll probably be the only way to get NHS Direct or to fill in your Tax Return or something stupid.

In reply to Philip:
>

Indeed. But equally, anywhere I go that I could fit a netbook I'd rather take my ipad. I don't think it's an "as well as" job - it's an "instead of" - i looked at netbooks but as we're a pretty much all apple household (in fact exclusively now that our lass has ditched her windows laptop for my old macbook), as well as gullible fashion-victims and knowing nothing about technology, ipad seemed the way to go.

In reply to andy:

Thanks for the tip - I do have Pages so will have a play around to see if I can do this.

In reply to Alan_2468: If you're reading a pdf on a webpage if you put the cursor somewhere near the top a bar appears with a button saying "open in pages" - which means it'll save in "my documents" til you delete it.

In reply to JonC: I like them. As you say, they are stylish and well made and lovely to use. However, for me I can't see why I would need one when I already have a PC and laptop. The only advantage it offers is that you can relax back onto a sofa to use it.

They're beautiful, fun to use and very stylish, but they have a few backbreaking failures:

Can't run two programs at once.

No camera.

Can't connect it to a TV to show your photos.

Can't install your own software.

Can't connect to any devices without an adapater.

Can't save documents properly.

No Flash.

That means no videos.

No YouTube.

No online games.

There's no keyboard.

No mouse.


And so on and so on. The simple truth is that most people will need to start hacking and jailbreaking their iPad along with using numerous workarounds almost immediately to do what they need to, as this thread shows. From the company and the users who have treated us to years of whining, "but it just works", that's pretty ironic.

So, you paid more than you would for a top-end netbook and you can't even open two programs at the same time? Serious question: why did you buy one?

In reply to niggle:

Thanks niggle. You made me laugh.

Seriously, I'm so glad I bought an ipad instead of a netbook. I've used tons of netbooks at work and they are crap by comparison. Sure, the ipad has its limitations, but if you accept them, instead of trying to pretend it's something that it's not, then it's a great tool.

In reply to EeeByGum:

Don't underestimate the appeal of your last point.

In reply to niggle:

nope - but it will in about a fortnight


Don't need one.


Nope - but i have my photos on my desktop not a mobile computer. For looking at photos on the move itn does just fine (as would a laptop)

I don't write my own software.

Granted.

Yes you can.

Nope. Haven't missed it so far.


No, it means no Flash videos

Wrong


?

There is - i'm typing on it. And i can even spell adaptor right on it.

Nope. And?


For the simple pleasure of making people like you splutter with outrage at my gullibility and stupidity.

Oh - and because it just works.

In reply to JonC:

could try one of the alternatives - its easy to think that the iPad is the only thing available but as Niggle points out there are some downsides, you could try http://wepadnews.com/ which has got excellent reviews, is cheaper and has flash support.

Not released in the UK yet though

In reply to niggle:

>"Can't connect it to a TV to show your photos.
No YouTube."

Really? Are you sure about that?

I've got an ipod touch which I quite like using. I'm thinking that I'd quite like the same thing witha bigger screen.

In reply to jasonC abroad:

You're right - the iPad's had some modest success simply because it hasn't had any real competition. There's some on the way though - HP and Compaq both have pads coming out whhich will have almost all the features the iPad lacks.

In reply to jasonC abroad: That looks really good, actually - although i think it says it's a wee bit more expensive than an ipad - but i have, as i have already demonstrated, got far more money than sense!

In reply to The New NickB:

I don't. But for the small inconvenience of not being able to compute whilst lying down I am £500 better off. These sort of devices are definitely the future of informal computing though so hats off to Apple for getting the ball rolling.

In reply to niggle:
I was watching a YouTube video on my iPhone yesterday, I actually copes better with video than some of the android handsets. Not being able to watch badgerbadgerbadger is a bit of a bind though!

In reply to andy:


Gullible? Well, I didn't think you were, I thought you just traded a lot of functions which most people would really need for some slick looks.

Still, you say yourself that you're gullible so I guess you must be. Your choice mate.

In reply to EeeByGum:


Actually slate-type tablet PCs have been around for almost as long as regular laptops. It's noticeable that the Apple fanboys didn't buy one (or apparently notice they existed) until Apple told them to though.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


There's been talk of video with HTML 5, I gather. Wonder how that'll affaect things?

In reply to andy:

I'm not sure about the price - I've been looking around to find it but it should be less as its using a lot of open source software - I thought it was around 500 euro mark
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/12/the-wepad-gets-a-price-and-launch-date...

In reply to niggle: I'm hugely gullible as far as technology goes, as what I'm interested in is whether it does what I need it to so if the reviews tell me it will work i tend to splash out. But i'm not sure what functions you think i really need that i'm not getting. I want to have a lightweight, convenient device that lets me read and amend documents, browse the web, read email, look at photos, watch videos (and the Tour and the football live), and play the odd game (incidentally you can watch slideshows on the telly, but that's another thing I don't need).

I bought an ipad because i have lots of other apple computers and in my experience they are, (for my needs), more functional, more stable and easier to use.

I'm happy with my choice, and for what I want i'd thoroughly recommend it.

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:

It's free on Android

And by Christ it's addictive!

In reply to jasonC abroad: I just read the comparison where it said it was more expensive than an ipad.

In reply to jasonC abroad:

Samsung's Galaxy Pad looks interesting: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/03/samsung-galaxy-tab-revealed/

In reply to andy:


Well, I said the iPad doesn't have functions most people would need - like, say, copy and pasting from an email into another document. And let's face it who ever copies and pastes between files when they're amending documents?

Sure, if you can live without trivial, rarely-used functions like that, an iPad will probably be the one for you. Just ignore the nay-sayers - they'll be saying people use Microsoft Office next! guffaw!

In reply to niggle:


Indeed - and touch phones and MP3 players were all around before Apple came into the game. All Apple have done is raised the stakes and good on them for it. Of course this is good news for everyone because the competition have also upped their game.

I believe there is a similar comparison in the guidebook world. Guidebooks were around for donkeys years before Rockfax came along and stirred everything up. Those who have Rockfax are happy and those who prefer definitive guides are also happy because the BMC had to up their game in order to compete.

This is all that has happened.

In reply to JonC:

I quite like the conceptas a reader and web browser but to get me interested it needs to be able to multi-task, I like listening to tunes when browsing, it also needs an HDMI output so it can be used as a conduit for iPlayer, 4OD etc. It just doesn't do enough for me just now.

In reply to Removed User:
Proper multi-tasking is coming in the next software update, but you've always been able to run iTunes in the background.

In reply to EeeByGum:


Wel, they've raised the price, certainly.

The stakes though? Not really. Apple do for computing what X-Factor does for music: it's not about a good product, it's about noisy, crude and very, very loud marketing intended to make the audience buy a product which is inferior in most respects.

As you say, Apple don't invent anything new. They just copy other people's good ideas, make them shiny and extremely expensive. Not very much to admire there, I think.

In reply to Only a hill:


Not really. Apple's going to allow a few select processes to run in the background, not multitasking. Oh and you're going to get Apple's very nasty new advertising software whether you like it or not.

Not nice.

In reply to niggle:


I take you points and largely agree with you, but with my business hat on, do you blame them? If you are targeting your business, are you going to point it towards the X-factor crowd who buy first and think second, or are you going to stand up for your beliefs and morals and pitch the best product at a dwindling number of connoisseurs?

Can it make a cup of tea?

In reply to Philip:

Probably not, the processor is pretty energy efficient. You really want a high end intel chip for a quick cuppa.

In reply to niggle:
To be fair, you don't have an iPad and all you've done is slag it off ... whereas the people who actually have one and have extensively used it, almost invariably have nothing but good things to say about them.

Guys, it's only a computer, it's not an important issue.

In reply to Only a hill:


Oh, I've used one all right - one of my work colleagues has one.

Hey, if people like it and can afford to spend that much money, they should go for it. I couldn't own one even if I wanted to because I use my computer for wild, left-field stuff like using Microsoft Office and even copying and pasting between documents. But folks who can convince themselves that really they don't need to do stuff like that or run two programs at once should love it (or at least pretend they do).

In reply to Reach>Talent:


The iPad can only make you a cup of lukewarm water, but it'll tell you that it's a rich, frothy macchiato. The test of whether you're a real Apple user is whether you'll drink it and swear it's delicious - then shout at everyone around you that they should be drinking it too...

In reply to agibb:

pretend it's something that it's not

But thats what apple is so good at..

I can see the appeal to those who want to do exactly what they do on a phone but want bigger screen.

When people start buying a keyboard for it etc i cant understand why one would want ipad over a notebook that will do a lot more than the ipad ever will (and cheaper)

In reply to JonC:

Does the ipad have a niggle filter?

In reply to niggle:
Are you sure about that?

In reply to JonC:

I have one. I use lots of Apple products through work. To me, the iPad is a work in progress - it's got some very nice features, but it's a bit of a case of a solution in search of a problem.

Its strengths are: superb media consumption device, intuitive interface, very good battery life.

Its limitations are largely by design - it ISN'T a laptop without a keyboard. Sadly. You need to accept Apple's walled garden approach - draconian rules for what can be installed on it etc. I miss most a USB port and a SD slot. Apple would scoff in my direction for saying it, but dedicated hardware menu and back buttons would - in my opinion - massively improve the interface.

Its main problem is the price tag.

In reply to Slugain Howff:


Yeah, it filters Niggle, Google, and anyone else who Apple suspects might be pointing out that their products are a bit shit.

In reply to niggle:
Does the iPad not have cut and paste, seems strange as the iphone does?

In reply to Reach>Talent:

My thoughts exactly. Niggles knowledge of what the iPad cannot do seem a little unreliable.

In reply to Reach>Talent:

I take it you haven't tried to implement copy cut and paste then? My colleague spent about 3 months implementing it on our mobile browser. It and it near killed him.

Apple are only doing what all software companies do. Get your software out there and then enrich it with new features over time.

In reply to The New NickB:

The iPad is intended as a consumer device not a producer hence the lack of a physical keyboard. Yes you may create emails etc but generally it's intended to view content created elsewhere.

I don't have one and probably won't get one as it's not something that fills any need so it would be a definite luxury purchase.

Apple have history of being able to link their products so I suspect that they have plans beyond the device itself. Apple also seem to hang back a bit and get things sorted rather than being first to market and this feeds the fanboy frenzies as the kit is generally fairly mature. If I were to get one then I'd wait a revision or two to let the problems get ironed out and see what the overall strategy is going to be.

ALC

In reply to Reach>Talent:

The iPad has got cut & paste. It also has YouTube, and more importantly - VLC Player. It can play BBC iPlayer stuff, too. As a media consumption 'lean back' device, it can't be beaten today.

In reply to JonC:
Not got one but the indian curry shop I went to met you at the door took your name confirmed and showed us on the ipad the table was booked for us and he went round the tables taking the orders without ever having to leave the front of house. If you wanted a drink, a few taps and a minuite or two later someone appeared with it.

If you have a coustomer led business, they look ideal and will save you money on staff

In reply to Mikkel:

That's why I am not at all attracted by the ipad. If you're sat on the sofa, and want to use a keyboard, how do you keep the ipad screen upright?? Come to think of it, how do you do it when you're at a table? Do you have to carry around a screen support?

Netbooks and laptops are so much easier to use in this respect... a screen that is supported upright by the keyboard is the simplest and most effective design for this type of use.

But practicality is never a consideration of fashion, is it..?

In reply to Frogger:

You can get keyboards for the ipad that do this so it doesn't have to be a bluetooth model. However you are heading towards netbook territory with this sort of setup which I think offer a different kind of versatility, there's a crossover but the two types of device are for different markets. The touchscreen epos type of app in the restaurant mentioned above is a natural extension of the terminals that many stores/restaurants already have, just that they are now mobile.

ALC

In reply to Stefan Kruger:


Not between documents it doesn't - remember that it can only run one application at a time, so you'd have to copy, close the application, open the new application, open the new document, then paste.


Except by devices which offer bleeding-edge, highly advanced capabilities like typing with both hands.

In reply to JonC:

I love this thread, niggle is actually making me laugh for once.

I rate Apple products. I use macs and FCP at work for video and they're faultless really. Apple consistently produces well designed products that not only work well but look good. They are undoubtedly high end products. I also own an iPod Touch which I reckon is unparalleled for 'on the train' entertainment. I can listen to music, play games, watch videos etc. Note I don't have an iPhone. I still like to separate my phone from other gadgets. My home laptop is a macbook which I got because I wanted to record and edit music and browse the internet, send emails etc. So for my needs it was a better buy than a pc.

I use a pc for word processing and office tasks. It's streets ahead of Apple in this regard.

After all of that, I don't think I'll ever buy an iPad. It's designed for consumption of the internet. People who want to just sit and mindlessly absorb trivial information from the internet love it. I never really do that so I don't want or need one.

So it's all about applications. As with most Apple products the iPad is very good at doing what it's designed to do and is expensive.

In reply to JonC:

To me, it's a pretty plaything. That, as the previous poster said, works beautifully for surfing. But I want Windows and a keyboard for proper stuff so for me it would be a luxury buy.

In reply to niggle:
remember that it can only run one application at a time, so you'd have to copy, close the application, open the new application, open the new document, then paste.

Or just use the handy switch applicattions feature to swap between them? While it isn't as fast as Ctrl-C/Alt-Tab/Ctrl-V it is hardly a huge chore.

Except by devices which offer bleeding-edge, highly advanced capabilities like typing with both hands.

You can can't you?

While I don't actually like the bloody iPad, I seem to find myself defending it

In reply to Eric the Red:


Interesting that you should say that - did you know that a PC with the same spec as a Mac pro is about a third of the price?

Apple used to do good, fast machines, but PCs have well and truly caught up.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


Depends whether you like having your documents autosaved and/or losing data without asking I suppose.


If you can levitate the iPad with the power of your mind alone - otherwise you'll probably have to use one of your hands to hold it.

In reply to niggle:

I'm not going to argue about specs and equivalent prices. My macbook has 2GB RAM and still works like a dream. PCs need 2GB RAM just to run Windows.

It's worth the money just for OS-X.

In reply to niggle:
If you can levitate the iPad with the power of your mind alone - otherwise you'll probably have to use one of your hands to hold it.

I would probably use my knees, which coincidentally I also use for my laptop! The ergonomics aren't great but then they aren't with any of the portables unless you drive a second screen.

In reply to Eric the Red:


Yeah, that would show that Macs are unbelievably expensive, wouldn't it?


Actually XP can run in 64Mb and Vista can run in 512. The only version of windows I know of which needs 2GB is the 64-bit version of Windows 7, which is a bit specialised but has phenomenal performance in its niche.


Oh yeah. Because everyone buys a computer so they can open windows, close them again, open them, close them and maybe even click on a few icons.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


Both my laptops have a really ingenious feature which I believe is becoming more common now - they have a hinge along the middle which allows the screen to be upright while the keyboard stays flat. I particularly like this clever idea because my eyes face forwards while my hands lie flat most of the time. Are your eyes on stalks, or built into the underside of a sort of shelf or something so they look downwards?

In reply to niggle:
I have a hinge, in fact a series of hinges in my neck! No portable device is ever going to have good ergonomics. Most laptops are much bulkier than an ipad yet still fail to deliver a typing platform that any ergonomist would concider reasonable.

In reply to niggle:


COPY -> press home button -> double touch on icon of other app -> PASTE

Hardly difficult, possibly fewer taps required than on my PC, yet on a tablet much smaller that is not really designed for word processing.

Last time I tried I had great difficulty getting my laptop to follow my finger around the screen. It doesn't mean that laptops are crap, just they don't usually have a touch screen interface. You don't have to be a "fanboy" to like Apple products.

In reply to Frogger:


I think you are missing the point of the iPad. It was not intended to be used to type a novel on. Nor was it designed with serious business in mind either. If you are the sort of person who only uses a computer to surf the net, use Youtube, watch movies / clips and share photos then the iPad is for you. If not - buy something else but just because it does not fulfil your requirements, does not mean it is rubbish by default.

In reply to JonC:

We have been given basic iPads at work to make us look all cutting edge in front of clients. Unfotunately it doesn't run any of our essential software and the spreadsheet is a bit too basic to be useful. Having said that it is brilliant for all the stuff I do in my free time, surfing, reading, listening to music. It's just a shame we are not allowed to take them home...

If I were buying an entertainment gadget then I would buy an iPad but for me it's not going to replace my £299 laptop for business+home use.

In reply to niggle:
And you haven't mentioned that PCs run DOS very well. It's a great operating system that has stood the test of time.

In reply to pneame:

"Messy-Dross is _not_ a true operating system. It's a program loader with a hardon and delusions of grandeur."

In reply to EeeByGum:
Interesting, I'm using my iPad to write a novel on ... and the cheaply available Notebooks software is much, much better for organising a complex structure of text files than anything I've seen on conventional computers (apart from the excellent Scrivener I have installed on my Mac).

I think the iPad is far more capable than people think it is. It's just a bit different.

In reply to niggle:

Which is what.. if not cut & paste?



Do you know what 'lean back' means? Laptops and other devices with keyboards are 'lean forward' devices.

The iPad is for media CONSUMPTION, not creation. The iPad isn't a replacement for a good laptop - it wasn't intended to be - and the reason why some people don't 'get' the iPad is the failure to grasp this.

Do you own an iPod or other equally capable media player? Does it have a keyboard? Can it do cut & paste between applications?

The iPad is (and was always intended to be) a large iPod-Touch.

In reply to Stefan Kruger:


Would I pay £190 for an 8GB music player?

One which needs to be tampered with as soon as you buy it in order to get it do do most useful stuff?

Which comes with the utterly horrible iTunes software?


Do you know what? Actually I wouldn't.


Shame it can't access Flash content then. Or more than one kind of content at a time. Or most kinds of common office documents. Oh and it can't print anything either. Or get media from another computer without a special adapter or faffing with iTunes. Or send it to another computer. Or display PDF files properly.

Yeah, apart from being incompatible with most of the media people actually use, it's just great at... you know... errrr.... showing some videos from a couple of sources or something?

In reply to niggle:
Haha, you're wrong on almost all counts there ... but I'm convinced you're trolling by this stage, because you have already admitted you don't own one therefore your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. Why not listen to the overwhelming majority of perfectly happy users, who have (key point, here) actually used the machine a lot more than you have?

In reply to niggle:
Or most kinds of common office documents.
Really, I've not had any problems.

Oh and it can't print anything either.
Never tried but I'm pretty sure you can.

Or get media from another computer without a special adapter or faffing with iTunes.
Really? I've not had any problems, although I've only tried twice so that could be beginners luck.

Or send it to another computer.
You mean use the Ipad as a media server? Do you complain that your blender isn't good at ironing?

Or display PDF files properly.
What is the iPad equivalent of PEBCAK? The PDF viewer seems to work fine, are you using some sort of hokey 3rd party PDF authoring tool?

In reply to JonC:
ok back to your question and throw one back at you

if you would buy one, what would you buy it to do?
i was in the market for an ultraportable earlier on in the year and choose a netbook rather than an ipad for the following reasons
cost my £240
runs a quick start OS (linux) for web browsing etc or wait a bit longer and get win7 (starter admittedly)
i already had a 2Gb ram cheap for it and it came with a 160gb hard drive
i can install a AMP stack on it and demo / develop websites on it
i can resize photos and upload them to the web (using picasa in this case)
i can insert the sd card from my camera straight into the side of it thus having an instant backup.
and on top of that i'm less worried about some toerag nicking it becasue it doesn't look as cool

while windows is a pain in the ass to manage compared to some other OS's it's worth the effort to allow me to do all those things and at roughly half the price of the ipad.

as always it's horses for courses. while i'm less "passionate" about it i do thing niggle's mostly right about apple. however they are very "clever" with their marketing, no question! can't imagine thousands of people queuing up to buy the blackberry playbook when it comes out.

In reply to Reach>Talent:


So you've got Microsoft Office for ipad then? Funny, Microsoft say they haven't even decided if they'll make it yet.


Well, you can buy an app that prints quite badly... if you don't mind having to pay extra to print from a computer you already paid a fortune for. The iPad doesn't print directly - Steve Jobs says that'll be in the next softwae update.


No, I use Adobe's top of the line illustration and layout programs, Illustrator and InDesign, which use PDF as a native file format. iPads can't reflow text properly and their non-native font support is nonexistent. Oh and you have to pay for a half-decent reader.

In reply to rallymania:


Nerd question: how difficult was that to get up and running? Been considering it for a while...

In reply to Only a hill:

Yes, the thing about Mac users is that we are almost all, without exception, very happy with them. Because they are so robust, reliable, easy, and enjoyable to use. PC users seldom seem to be as happy with their machines, and seem to be deeply resentful of Mac owners, I suspect because they know just how trouble free they tend to be. I've met very few creative people who use PCs, and I'm fairly sure that the vast majority of the team behind UKC also use Macs. Surprise, surprise.

I've noticed that even the printer down the road, who does superb Giclee digital prints onto cartridge paper etc and who used to use both a PC and a Mac (and was rather rude about the Mac, not having had it long), now uses a Mac exclusively. There's no longer a PC in sight. I haven't made any comment.

In reply to niggle:

Who on earth in the modern world still wants to use the dinosaur of Microsoft Office?

In reply to niggle:
Have you heard of Dropbox? Notebooks? Scrivener? You really don't know what you're talking about!

In reply to niggle: I really don't know why i'm rising to this but you said it can't "access most common office documents" not "run microsoft office". It can.

It does everything i need it to do, it does it well and whilst there may be alternatives on rhe way if they're anything like the iphone alternatives that have been appearing many of them probably won't be as good (in the eyes of independent reviewers, anyway).

I use it when i'm out and about, which is 2 or 3 days a week. i do a bit of work on it, which i can email back to the office. If it needs printing someone does it for me. If i'm in the office i work on a desktop. Easy peasy.

However, and obviously it's taken this thread to get this through to me, i now realise that the ipad is not, in fact, a fully functioning laptop or desktop computer. Nor is it a toaster. Good job I didn't buy it to make toast on - I'd have been livid.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


About 750 million users worldwide?

In reply to niggle:


That to me is the definition of a PC. Much as I love my PC I spend an inordinate amount of time tinkering with it to get the most (or at times anything) out of it. The beauty of the Apple is it does what you basically need out of the box.

Likewise a gaming console. I hate consoles because they have a fiddly input system, instead of a mouse. However, the fact that I can't do everything I would like to do on a PC with them doesn't detract from their use. They are different tools for different purposes and those who swear by consoles for gaming aren't misguided.


Itunes is the best I have used. It has its flaws but overall I haven't found anything better. Its a matter of personal taste.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


I've owned quite a few macs - a PowerPC, a Quadra, an iBook, a G4 and a mac mini. They were all absolutely dreadful. They crashed constantly, hardware broke, they were impossible to fix and none of them lasted more than a couple of years.

I now use PCs exclusively. I can upgrade the individual parts when I want to, they don't crash even when I beat the daylights out of them with video and 3D work, they're cheap and much, much faster than any mac I could get for similar money.

No contest really.


Oooh, the hallmark of art.

In reply to David Martin:


Here's my comparison:

Apple
Installed Adobe Premiere. Installation failed four times. I resorted to using Final Cut. Final Cut installed cleanly but used almost all the available space on the hard disk.

Tried to plug in my Sony HDV deck. The mac doesn't recognise it. Tried again. Still no joy.

Plugged the camera straight in. Finally it picks up the input. With the worst jellovision and underscanning I've ever seen.

Tried to edit 30 seconds of existing footage. Editing was fine, then when I tried to render the clip the estimate was over an hour.

PC
Installed a firewire card in two minutes. Installed Premiere first time. Plugged the deck in and started capturing footage immediately. Rendered footage is output at about 10 minutes per 30 seconds.

Needless to say i haven't even tried to install Maya or After Effects on the mac. That would a complete waste of time.

In reply to andy:


Exactly. You get someone with a PC to do it for you.

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

In reply to niggle:

You do seem to be unlucky then - not something i've heard from anyone else. You're not trying to use them to scare pigeons with by throwing them out of the window, are you? That's not really what they're designed for and may well make them malfunction. You'd be better off with a brick for that sort of thing.

Seriously though I've had an iMac for about 5 years ans it still runs the latest versions of software, it runs it quickly and it doesn't crash - ever. Don't use it that much because now I have an ipad and spend more time in the kitchen/living room/garden than i do in my office at home.

In reply to niggle: Yes. Because i'm out of the office. Even when i carried a laptop i almost never took a laser printer with me.

HA HA HA HA HA.

HA.

In reply to niggle:
PofP, i just used wampp lite from "apache friends" (i think "standing on the shoulders of giants" should be my middle name)

it's not fully secure (no root password for mysql by default for example), but then i'm not making it available on the internet anyway so it's not a biggy and i always change the database usernames and passwords when i move the site to "live" (not that as a hobbyist webdev i'm actually doing that very often lol)

it comes with AMP, ftp server, perl and php hence the double p, phpmyadmin and a handy little tray app to stop and start everything if you don't want them running all the time as services... as you would do on a netbook lol

it's fine for a "personal dev environment" or if you wanted to take a snapshot to a client and stick it on a big screen at their site without exposing your office webserver you can. (or if they don't have an internet connection in their meeting room... it does happen)

In reply to JonC:
mate has one, great 'consumer product', not designed for input so much.

pc's? talk to people that use both..my mate's {professionally maintained] pc crashes all the time, her mac never has.

they are a bit tarty and need a different mindset, but work and don't get in your face as much as microsoft [even tho' you're locked into them, which is baaad, m'kay? ]

In reply to rallymania:

Sounds fine to me. It's not a huge deal, it would just remove the step of ftping to the test server every time I make a change.

In reply to andy:


Mmmm, yes, a computer which never has any problems. Very likely. I'm sure we all really believe you.

In reply to thin bob:


I wonder, when you trot this out, do you think that anyone will believe you? Seriously - a computer which never, ever has problems? I think most of know that that's just not very likely.

In reply to niggle:


My laptop (iBook? the white one anyway...) is coming on four years but besides it slowing down a bit (I keep filling the not very big hard drive with all my pics and video) it still works very well. I don't think I've ever managed to crash it. One of my external HD occasionally won't plug in and play, but if I look at USB ports on the system profiler then it pops up.

I have PC desktop and ThinkPad (what I'm typing on now) for work and both occasionally crash for no obvious reason. I like the ThinkPad a lot and will be sad to have to give it back, but it is fiddly compared to the mac and doesn't work with other devices nearly as easily.

In reply to niggle: Not much I can say to that - it doesn't crash (not that I can ever remember anyway - and nothing like the weekly ctrl-alt-del my mrs was always doing on her laptop). I don't do the sort of heavyweight stuff it sounds like you do, but I can't ever remember having to turn it off and on etc. In fact the worst thing (that I can't sort) is that my garmin uploads don't automatically upload to the web, but I suspect that's garmin's software not my machine.

In reply to niggle:

Over the years I've had a couple of ibooks, macbook and currently an iMac I got back in 08, they've all had their 'moments' on occasions, the ibook is still running only due to me cannibalising another older one. The iMac just had 2 graphic card replacements in the last 3 weeks causing some disruption to workflow. On the whole though I like them and I prefer osx as an operating system which is the biggest draw for me. Thank god for apple care though

At a creatives network meeting recently I have noticed a few people carrying ipads to show off their portfolios!

In reply to JonC:

An Apple argument, yay.

Genuine question, is it the software that's better or the hardware of Apple kit compared to PC kit and Microsoft software?

In reply to TobyA:


Our old mini mac crashed very infrequently, but it did break our office record by taking over an hour to close itunes on one occasion. So I suppose you could say it didn't crash very much, but it didn't do a lot else either!

In reply to niggle:

3-1.

In reply to andy: Ooh - 3-2 - is there time for a late equaliser?

In reply to Removed User:


Old skool designers quite often still use macs, but digital designers almost never do. It's not really because PCs are better, it's because Macs make up, what, less than 5% of browsers? I'm sure you'd agree it'd be pretty stupid to develop applications without a useful way to check how they work for 95%+ of your users.

In reply to andy:

Niggs is waiting for the apple imad.

In reply to dek:

Sure - you're their lead tester aren't you?

In reply to The Lemming:

I don't think the hardware is better but I do think for 'me' the osx operating system is nicer to use although I suspect that windows has caught up with 7 judging from some feedback on it I've seen.

In reply to Removed User:
I would have one just for looking at pics.......its lurvely!

Here's a question for the Mac supporters here:

If Apple's products are really that good - they "just work", they're more compatible and they never crash - then why is it, do you think, that macs make up a miniscule, almost negligible proportion of computers worldwide?

If Apple's products are really, honestly as good as you say they are, how come everyone isn't buying them? How come Apple owners make up a tiny, fringe minority and that market share is actually shrinking, not growing?

Have you ever considered that you might be wrong? That the elaborate nonsense about how Macs never crash and "just work" just isn't true, it never was and intelligent people don't buy it?

What do you tell yourselves that explains why a product you claim is amazing has the market share of a product which is, frankly, utter rubbish?

In reply to JonC:

A mate of mine showed me his new iPad recently and it threw so many hissy fits, that we both got quite embarrassed. It's sexy, mind you. Another mark to Apple for style over performance...

In reply to niggle:

it is, it's true. next?

In reply to niggle:


Did you never hear of Betamax?

In reply to thin bob:

you saying you cant get porn on a Mac?

In reply to thin bob:


Betamax wasn't actually much better than VHS.

Mac supporters claim that Macs aren't just superior to PCs, they can do utterly impossible things like operating flawlessly all the time. I don;t think anyone ever made a claim that incredible about beta!

In reply to niggle: Because not many people are as rich as us?

In reply to thin bob:


Really?

Then why are their Mac repair centers and support companies? Why are there help pages on the web?

Be honest, you're just being silly really. We know you like macs. But never, ever crashing? You should at least make the BS believeable!

In reply to andy:


Well if you buy apple products you won't be rich for very long!

In reply to niggle:

I'm not sure what you mean by a "mac supporter" but i use them because (as i believe i may have said many times) they do what i want with no fuss. I'm extraordinarily un-techy so i like the product. I don't particularly think they're "better" than pc's (but if my wife's laptop is typical they are far better for what we need). It might be if they'd had W7 when i was last in the market for a computer I might have a different view, but the last PC i bought came with Vista and I'm afraid that was so unutterably dreadful I'm somewhat biased against them.

But my iMac really, really doesn't crash and in 5 years I can't remember anything that didn't turn out to be my router or something - but as I said I pretty much just browse t'internet, a bit of Office type stuff and some basic photo editing.

In reply to niggle:

just reading through the thread since I posted yesterday. The only thing that flummoxes me is why you're so vehemently anti-Mac. Surely it doesn't matter *that* much?

In reply to niggle:

I will - because I don't have to buy them very often. My ipad is the first apple thing i've bought since my iPhone in 2009, and before that it was my iMac in 2005.

In reply to Tall Clare:


I'm not really. In fact as I said I owned a few.

I am however anti-bullshit. And most of what's been posted about apple productsby the mac enthusiasts on this thread is just that. Never crashing? Come off it!

Macs don't bother me all that much because that fight's already well and truly won. Apple's big userbase, the one where they still had a hold - the creative industries - is walking away in droves from the irrelevant, overpriced toss apple sell. Good thing too, what the web and the public needs right now is designers and developers who understand their market, not yet more elitists.

In reply to andy:


Wow, you've lasted an entire year without having to buy a new toy? You must have truly superhuman levels of self-control.

Sorry, were we supposed to be impressed? By what, your ability to save up your pocket money?

:P

In reply to niggle:

posts like this don't help people to listen to your point of view :-P

In reply to JonC:

I'm not sure that macs are as reliable as they used to be. There were seven of us on my course that all got shiny new macbook pros when we started two of which had the hard drives break in fairly short order (within a week or two of using them) which i think is a fairly common problem (about 1/10). I also slightly resent the fact that now the battery is internal so when i want it replaced i have to pay an engineer £100 for the pleasure.

Rob

In reply to andy:


Interesting point to pick up on there - you are aware that MacOS is basically a copy of windows, right? The dock is just a crap rip-off of the task bar, the main window view is a lame take on the ancient windows explorer - in fact are there any "features" mac os has which windows didn't do first and better? Can't think of any.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Oh dear. What a shame.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Definitely the smugness factor.

E

In reply to JonC:

there great devices with great potential

copied by others .. but not bettered they are ahead of the game always ...

I have a few at my disposal I like them a lot ....


I'm sure iPad 2 will have all the refinements of the iPhone 4 pretty soon

then they will be brilliant !

In reply to niggle:

Actually its based on technology that next developed in the late 80s which predates the windows explorer type interface by a good 5 years or so.

Ultimately all guis owe something to research by xerox in the 60s (interesting vid here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_X04XwrUY8)

(Mac & windows user and happy with both. Where are the linux fanbois, I managed a year before it drove me up the wall which is a shame.)

In reply to andy:


I think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. Apple make technology for people who are prepared to pay a lot for a degree of simplification, because, simply put, they don't like technology. If you're 'techy' enough to be annoyed by the limitations of Apple/Mac software and the system of exclusivity Apple have created, then Apple products simply weren't designed for you.

In reply to niggle:

Niggle i don't really give a flying one what you think - i was making the point that for my needs my computer does me just fine. I was attempting to explain (without, you'll note, knocking windows or any other sort of computer (apart from that pile of junk my mrs had)) why the apple products i have work for me, and the fact i don't need to spend oddles of cash replacing them because they last quite a long time.

In your, clearly vastly better informed, opinion, i am wasting my money on an inferior product that apparently doesn't do lots of things that i should (unbeknwn to me) require it to do. Well i guess that your disapproval is just something i'll have to live with, eh?

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:


Still peddling that old chestnut, eh?

No geek points for you. Real nerds usually go for SketchPad or Sage as the first windows gui, but there are extra points on offer for saying it was Bush's memex.

Not that that's relevant; Englebart's systems didn't have the task bar - that was Microsoft in Windows 95, which Apple then ripped off for the "dock".

In reply to andy:


If you like.

That and constantly having to spend yet more money on an already ludicrously expensive computer to get it do basic stuff like print which everyone else gets for free.

In reply to niggle:

When i changed to Macs it was a revelation.

Everything just seemed a little faster, for example, the time to boot up was a lot less then my PC. I notice the new MacBook Air uses flash to start up instantly.

The Mac OS also didn't keep asking me annoying question all the time, i recall being really annoyed with my windows OS always suggesting some crap, and all the programs telling me about updates.

In reply to wilding:


Most programs offer the option of silent updates. Personally i want control over when stuff gets updated since i have a fairly weird set up (hybrid dev, game and general use machine) and hence i like to control what changes when.
Made sure my parents is set to invisible updates though.

In reply to niggle:

Because PCs had a better business model in the early days allowing them a stranglehold. These were the days when you would have only a PC version of a bit of software or a Mac one - seldom both.

I guess something akin to VHS beating Betamax.

I don't think Macs are necessarily better than PCs, and aside from my iPhone and a desire for an iPad I will keep building my PCs and using a non mac laptop. Its the opposition to Macs that is ludicrous, rather than the fact that most people like them.

In reply to stewieatb:


not sure this is fair at least for their proper machines. Since the mac os is layered on top of Unix as far as i am aware you get the full power if you chose to go beneath the pretty bits.

In reply to David Martin:


Don't think anyone's forcing people to buy PCs. They could buy Apple products if they wanted to - but the truth is they don't, do they?


But then that's not a fact is it? Hardly anyone likes Macs enough to buy them. Most people - 95% of people in fact - aren't actually that impressed by them at all.

In reply to niggle:


So you're basically saying those of us who are saying we have had positive experiences with Macs are lying. I find your iconoclasm on something so trivial quite amusing, but telling other people they are being untruthful because their experience doesn't fit your expectations is slightly insulting.

I'm now at home typing on my 3.5 year old mac - it has no problems with closing iTunes, its iPhoto that takes an age. BTW, my work ThinkPad which I believe isn't a cheap model by any means crashes at a rough guess 10 to 20% of the time when I just close its lid. It can't seem to reliably sort out its power settings when you close the scree. I can tell you definitely, my MacBook has never done that - although you'll probably now tell me that this is "bullshit".

In reply to TobyA: It's worth mentioning that in spite of Niggle's distaste for bullshit he's not beyond claiming that it's impossible to use youtube or cut and paste on an ipad.

In reply to TobyA:


No, I'm saying that anyone who claims they have had a computer - any computer - which hasn't ever had a software failure, a crash, is simply not telling the truth.

I'm sure plenty of people have had psoitive experiences with Macs. I did. But totally positive? No crashes? Ever? No one would believe that, it's just a silly attempt to support a weak position.


Have you thought about fixing it? Or is it really you who wants his expectations fulfilled, so much so that you'll actually keep a knackered PC and refuse to have it repeaired just so you can believe your mac is "better"?

Be honest.

In reply to Lemony:

Aaaw look, wittle wemony's all upset and peddling a load of bollocks about me because I insulted the holy mac.

I didn't say copying and pasting was impossible, just copy-pasting between programs.

Go on, tell us another one. Claim you had a mac which has never ever crashed, that one seems popular today.

In reply to niggle:



And other people have pointed out that that's inaccurate.

In reply to TobyA:

Oh and just to clarify, I'm talking about computers in normal, day to day use, not ones which are kept on the shelf switched off!

In reply to niggle:

To the best of my recollection my MacBook has never crashed.

On the PC...


What should I do to fix it? I've downloaded all the software updates. I follow all the instructions that I can understand on keeping all the security software up to date. Our IT guy at work said "yeah, that seems to be a problem with them". It's not the end of the world, I only waste a minute or two whilst it reboots, but it would be better if it just worked better. If I had spent lots of my own money on it, I'd probably go back to the shop and complain, but I got given by work so just live with it.


I think if you really believe that people outside of IT industries really think like that you, should get out a bit more. Perhaps talk more with your friends who aren't as emotionally invested in their computers as you seem to be. It's just a computer dude, don't let it upset so much!

In reply to Lemony:


Well, actually it's not. You do have to copy, close, launch, open then paste. It's such a chore in fact that the ipad has a shortcut for it.

Everyone else gets to copy and paste between programs with them still open, without having to close programs, lose data, autosave and without having to pay extra for new software which does what everyone else gets as standard for free.

In reply to niggle: So it implements it in a way you don't like then rather than not doing it. Just so we're clear that this sentence was bullshit:

In reply to TobyA:


?

I don't work in the IT industry. Never have done.


Well, I didn't start this thread - that would be the mac fanboys wanting to boast about how great their ipads are (snigger).

I'm very fond of my PC. Just like I'm fond of a particularly nice sable brush I've had for a while and the old Swann-Morton scalpel handle I got from my first ever job at a newspaper. Why wouldn't I like them and be invested in them, in many ways? I enjoy using them and I enjoy using the PC.

That shouldn't really be a surprise. So why do you have a problem with the idea that someone might actually like their computer? That really bothers you, doesn't it? So much so that you have to try to reduce it to "only a computer". So why?

In reply to niggle:
Glad I'm not a geek then if thats what it takes.

As you completely ignored what I said, the dock comes from nextstep which predates the explorer interface by a good 5 years or so and it in itself may have taken inspiration from riscos?

In fact the current taskbar in windows is if anything more maclike in the way it stacks up the applications, it certainly feels like it.

In reply to Lemony:


Terrific stuff. Loving your work, really.

In reply to niggle: So it was bullshit then, right?

In reply to Reach>Talent:


It's frightening how often I sit staring at that

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:

Yeah, I think the apple dock is very like the nextstep bottom bar. The task bar has a lot of extra functionality though and I think it's quite distinct (it's crossing-based rather than pointing, for a start).

In reply to Lemony:


Not really. But if you need to believe it, go ahead!

In reply to niggle:

Nothing wrong with liking your computer - I think that is how this all started wasn't it? I have three (well I don't own two of them), but I like the one most that works the best.


First you were telling people they were lying, now you are dispensing cod psychology through the magic of the internet. You are on form tonight Nigs ole' chap.

As to your motivations, I'm giving 2:1 on you having seen research that suggests mac users tend to be atheists and evens on you once having been dumped via iChat.

In reply to TobyA:


Oh, so now it is okay to be emotionally invested in your computer? You're contradicting yourself (again).

Go on, tell us the one about how I work in IT again. That was a real screamer.

In reply to niggle: Your laptop is never good enough - improvements all the time. Isn't? Software/hardware conflicts to sort out every day. Never ending battle. Super fast CPU intended to run mostly all the "patch covers" and feeding in the background some useless applications. And most painfull - lost work or data.
Not any more.
I'm on the Apple side of Force...

In reply to niggle:

>Actually XP can run in 64Mb and Vista can run in 512.

Can't actually use it though for anything other than staring at. I've tried. Microsoft are notorious for stretching the minimum spec credibility on their OS's.

Regards

D

In reply to niggle:
I'm amused that you appear to have spent your entire day on this thread being smug, pompous, arrogant, and stupid about something that doesn't matter to 99.9% of people on this planet.

Get a life!

In reply to andy:

Dial-up speed internet connections restricted to a few PCs on the boat are standard (& web site access normally restricted), access to wifi internet exists on maybe 1% of boats and the speed will normally be even slower because every man and his dog's on it using up the bandwidth. Downloading of movies is a big no-no unless you're the client and to be honest where I am at the moment downloading anything over about 4Mb is 50/50 whether it gets through or not. If you want access to a decent choice of movies and tv shows then a laptop and a big hard drive is pretty much essential.

The internet is a different world out here compared to home, think what it was like in maybe 2000 and you'd be getting close.

In reply to Only a hill:


Aaaaw. Look who's got all upset and angry.

Two minutes on the naughty step for you until you calm down.

In reply to niggle:
Bless, are you deluded enough to think you've made me angry? It takes more than a loser on the Internet talking bollox about stuff he doesn't understand to make me angry!

In reply to niggle: I prefer certain types of toilet paper to others, but I can't say I'm "emotionally invested" in one type over another. Perhaps you are different on such matters as well?

In reply to TobyA:
I've never really encountered a niggle before. Are they usually this tedious? Do I need to take any health precautions post-contact--perhaps a medical checkup? =P

In reply to TobyA:

I like the pink quilted stuff, but then I am a Mac user and a bit on the delicate side.

In reply to niggle:

Your work is done. Mr Jobs will be delighted with your marketing campaign, you have convinced me that I need an iPad, I will pop out and get on this afternoon.

In reply to niggle:

Just had a browse through the thread and came across this comment. I'm afraid I have to disagree. Our designers all use Macs and the vast majority (if not all) of the external design agencies they work with use Macs too.

In reply to Only a hill:

Niggle's arguments are great fun to read - Unfortunately I'm struggling with this one though because he's 100% right

E

In reply to Toby S:


Really? That's interesting.

How do they test web sites and other online stuff properly without a PC?

In reply to Toby S: In Finland we buy TP with little prints of Lambs on it! In the UK as a student I always made do Tesco Value, but then I also had an Amstrad word processor back then...

In reply to Toby S:

Niggs claims he is a Graphic designer......he would be better answered, asking his designer collegues about Macs. But posting shite on the internet takes up most of his time.

In reply to niggle:

Wow, I never thought I'd defend Apple, but your ignorance is stunningly amusing.

Apple's computers 'just work' because Apple controls both hardware and software. Microsoft etc has to rely on others to make sure yet another graphics card or whatever works.

I have a PhD in computer science. I've used more possible operating system and hardware combinations than I care to recall, including every version of Windows since 3.11. In latter years I've gravitated to Apple simply because - and I hate to say it - they 'just work'. I have never had a crash. The Dell box to my left crashes daily, yet is barely used in anger. My current work mac has an uptime measured in months between voluntary reboots to install something or another.

Apple is now the largest company in the US in terms of market cap (or one of the largest, haven't checked today), as you may or may not know. Apple's computer sales are the fastest growing of any company. Market share is difficult to measure sensibly - the websites we build has a significant proportion (much larger than the 5% you quote) from Apple products. We do all software and web development on Macs, exclusively.


That's simply not true - market share is growing rapidly - but granted, Apple makes premium high-end, aspirational products. You can build a no-brand PC from bits that will match or exceed the hardware spec of any given Mac at a fraction of the price, which means that at the lower end of the market, Apple can't (or rather won't) compete. This is fine - just like if Mercedes and BMW makes such good cars, why are people still buying Peugeots and Citroens?

Apple's computers are aimed at people who value NOT having to build their computers from scratch, who value stuff Just Working, never crashing etc, and are prepared to pay a premium for it. Could I build a cheaper computer matching the mac I type this on? Of course. Could I get an at least bearable experience with Windows 7 on it? Probably. Would I want to? No, because I value my time more than anything else.



Bless.


Do your homework, I suggest. If its products were rubbish and not selling, why is the company the largest in the US in terms of market cap?

In reply to Stefan Kruger:


I'm sorry, you think that Apple Computer Inc is the largest company in the US in terms of market capitalisation?

That'll be news to Exxon Mobil (and to anyone with a rudimentary enough grasp of athrithmetic to know that 338 is quite a bit bigger than 282).

Still, it's a good example of the sort of silly, hysterical hyperbole thrown around by mac fans. Have a look at these others from your own post:


It isn't. Apple lost over 1% market share to Q1 this year and hasn't really recovered.


So do PC owners all do this now?


Again, the magical, crash-proof mac.


You really believe that this is how most PC owners get their computers?


It isn't.


It's interesting, almost a kind of hysterical delusion in which Apple is the biggest, best company in the whole world and they're growing rapidly. None of it's true.

In reply to niggle:

You have managed to get people who are either not Apple fans or indifferent to the whole issue to state their support of Apple here on this thread. That might indicate that your viewpoint is the one that is skewed.

In reply to niggle: funny
Exxon Mobil is really competition for Apple. They do Oils. Is that what your PC needs to run? So what else is bigger then Apple in US? Just to remind you - we talk about computers?
Apple is selling more expensive computers then competitors and is selling more then those. People are so stupid - except you ofcourse.

In reply to David Martin:


Sure, it's possible. I'm not perfect.

But the available figures are pretty strongly against the idea that Apple has the highest brand cap in the US, sells more computers than its competitors or is growing in market share.

I don't really have to worry about whether people support Apple - again, the figures show very conclusively that they don't. That's just the reality.

In reply to niggle:

That's officially the funniest thing I've read on Rocktalk this year.

In reply to niggle: If "people" don't support Apple, why are Apple still in existence? The truth is that, whatever your view of Apple, many people support it (which is why Apple is a very profitable company with high brand recognition and sales). However, many people support alternative products instead or as well. Few are as evangalising (or perhaps anti-evangalising?) as you.

In reply to no feet:


Yeah, a bit less than 5% of people actually.


No, Apple have good recognition because they spend a fortune on very, very noisy advertising.


Maybe so. I'm interested in it as a social trend. As a technology trend mac computers might as well not exist for most purposes, but as a social trend it's quite interesting.

One of the things that interests me about it is the huge, negative reaction pointing out the flaws in Apple products produces. It certainly speaks volumes about customer loyalty, but it's a kind of loyalty most technology companies could do without - when users don't question the product, explore it, abuse it and use it fully, there's not enough feedback to create real progress and the company starts to produce flawed products which lack basic functions, as the iPad does.

In reply to deepdiver:

A very quick look on my bloomberg told me that Apple has larger market cap than IBM/Dell/HP/Acer....any others I should check?

In reply to niggle:

What figures are you looking at? Both Q1 2010 and Q2 2010 (fiscal quarters)were better for apple in terms of sales and profit that both Q1 2009 and Q2 2009. They were strong year over year results.

Q2 2010 sales and profit were down on Q1 2010 but that isn't surprising bearing in mind Q1 includes the holiday/Christmas period. There's a reason analysts often compare year over year, not quarter to quarter.

You can't say Apple as a company aren't doing well.

In reply to galpinos:


He will, though.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I know. I've been trying not to get drawn in (i'm not even an apple fan, the only apple product I have is a decrepit nano and itunes makes my blood boil) but he posts such rubbish I couldn't help myself.

In reply to Michael Woods:

Comparing them to IBM is a bit out of date as they sold their PC division years ago.

I would like to see Apple to a server as that thread would be funny to watch

In reply to Mikkel:


They did do, a few years ago and offered a stupendous reward for anyone who could commandeer the "unhackable" mac servers. Needless to say, it took all of ten minutes for the server to crash and the prize to be claimed.

In commercial hacking competitions, experts commonly choose macs to hack because they're so easy.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9072959/Mac_easiest_to_hack_says_10_...

In reply to galpinos:


No, they do just fine.

But comparing them to Dell or Microsoft isn't very useful because Apple are the only one who make both software and hardware. In real terms Dell outsell Apple in hardware and microsoft outsell them in software, both by a big margin.

Apple's combined strength looks great until you break it down and realise that actually their individual divisions aren't really very impressive (with the exception of mobile, of course!).

In reply to niggle:


Pretty sure there's no magic involved.

As an example:

I've got 7 Mac Pro's in my office, one Macbook and an iMac at home.

The Mac Pro's have been here for a year and none of them have crashed yet. I've had to run a few software updates and upgrade the RAM on another and they've been running like a dream.

The Macbook is my own work laptop and gets a real hammering, (trips away, I commute to work with it in my rucksack, I've dropped it, it's on for at least 8 hours a day 7 days a week) and hasn't let me down yet. It's certainly hasn't crashed. Occasionally I'll get the spinning beachball but that's usually because I'm impatient and trying to run too many apps at the same time, which I can sort by upgrading the RAM.

The iMac at home is nearly 3 years old and my wife used it for Uni work and her dissertation. It's heavily used and again I honestly can't think of an occasion where it's crashed.

I've got a similar amount of PC's in the office and in the last week I've had one hang which had to be forced to power down, another needs a motherboard replacement and the Bios battery on another is about deid. They're all about the same age. My colleague across from me as also just gone 'ahhhh... f'kin thing..' and stomped off for a coffee.

In reply to niggle:

My main issue was you stating that sales had fallen which when comparing Q2 to Q1 they had, but comparing year over year they had increased significantly. Lies damn lies etc...

For Q2, year over year, their desktop sales are up 45%, portables 17% (including the iPad?), ihone 124%, music 24%, iPod 12% etc. Those are pretty good turnover results in my (uneducated) eyes.

They're not the biggest company in the work but are certainly doing something right.

In reply to niggle:


Are your for figures actually for people buying computers or for computers sold? I would imagine that there is a clear difference between the two.

In reply to Toby S:
I have used Macs for the past 16 years and have also never experienced a crash. Until a few years ago I was still using a black and white Mac SE from about 1990; the only reason we got rid of it was because it was ridiculously out of date and couldn't get online.

Niggle is either deluded, insane, or a troll; not sure which. Either way, he seems blinkered to the vast bulk of evidence that refutes his wild theories.

In reply to Only a hill:


Oh that's a beauty. A real cracker. I love it, that one gets filed alongside folks who talk about how when they started creating web pages in the nineties, we all used notepad.

Thanks!

In reply to galpinos:


So I was right.

Shrug.

In reply to niggle:
It also happens to be true! Why stop using a piece of equipment when it has proven itself to be reliable and practically indestructible?

Have you seen the thread about the oldest item of electronic equipment you own?

In reply to Only a hill:

So you used a black and white mac with 4MB of RAM and a 10MHz procressor that wasn't capable of running any software made later than about 1992?

Fair play.

In reply to Only a hill:

Oh, and I really can do HTML from scratch using notepad, lots of people can. They just don't.

In reply to JonC:

Wow, what a long thread.

In reply to the OP, from a limited use fo the iPad, it seems that what it does well (browsing, document reading, online vid, some games) it does VERY well - probably better than a laptop/netbook. The user interface is very intuitive and the OS very straightforward to use.

Whether these benefits warrant the price tag is between you and your bank balance, but I suspect its success had been down to desirability more than functionality.

In reply to niggle:

Well, yes, but you deliberately chose to highlight a statistic that suggested you might be right, while ignoring the vast number of statistics that show that you are wrong. Apple's market share is growing, year on year (a meaningful measure) but not quarter on quarter (a meaningless measure). Surely you can't deny that.

In reply to stewieatb:

What an interesting idea.

So their market share is dropping between quarters, yet it's increasing between years?

Well I can't argue with that sort of, err, "ingenious" arithmetic!

In reply to niggle:
Well I can't argue with that sort of, err, "ingenious" arithmetic!

Seems perfectly logical, Q1 results feature the festive period and the January sales which are high points in the sales calendar for many companies. Q2 being lower is then not suprising.

In reply to niggle:

Do you know what a Chewbacca Defence is?

In reply to Only a hill:

I have a theory on this. For fear of being labelled an Apple lover...

It has always appeared to me that Apple products have very few versions. The space between an iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, for example, is a year in each case. I suspect on Mac laptops and desktops there are similar, if not longer periods between models.

On the other hand, my modular PC has a plethora of new graphics cards, screens, motherboards etc etc coming out every 6 months, all promising every more unparalleled % performance enhancement (usually not even noticeable in reality).

As a result, us PC owners, if caught up in the sales pitch, constantly feel obligated to upgrade and enhance for fear of having old and incompatible technology. For the Apple product user the feeling of drifting behind the technology curve is not as pronounced. The Apple might *be* out of date, but it doesn't feel like it - the styling stays pretty constant and pleasing on the eye, regardless of age....much like a sports car. My PC on the other hand is a bit like a classy escort girl who suddenly finds herself on the wrong side of 40, consigned to the mean streets of Kings X, a crack habit, and fast going downhill.

Hence, you can keep using a geriatric Apple while us PC users cannot stand to operate similarly antiquated PC components.

In reply to JonC:

Quite funny really - up to the point where I got bored reading niggle's incessant drivelling, he'd affirmed that he; doesn't actually know what an iPad can do, can't load software properly and breaks most of the computers he's ever been let near. That doesn't so much suggest expertise as incompetence!

(cut and pasted on an iPad)

In reply to niggle:

Come on Niggle, give it up! Arguing between Apple and PC is like arguing between Roman Catholicism and Islam, both sides know they are right and neither one is going to convert.

Personally I don't care about either, I just want affordable and useable which means that for the moment I am a PC user. If Apple want to go after the bottom end of the market then I will probably switch but I don't think that will ever happen in my lifetime.

In reply to Clarence:


This may amuse you

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=m25&rl...

The fifth link down caught my attention

In reply to niggle:
Which do you find more offensive?

A Hackintosh or A Mac box running Linux?

In reply to niggle:

Using your own curious approach to quarterly revenue, you'll be relieved to hear that in Q3 2010, Apple's net profit was $4.31bn, compared with $3.07bn in Q2.

I know you're possibly the only person for whom quarter to quarter revenue comparison is the best measure of a company's performance, but you have to admit, it's good that they've managed to turn their desperately poor Q2 performance around so quickly....

In reply to JonC: I haven't read all 200 comments but I have an iPad and think it's a fantastic piece of kit which makes me all warm inside I have the pages and keynote app which I can use for any work I need to do plus it has all the cool games.

In reply to MHutch:

"I know you're possibly the only person for whom quarter to quarter revenue comparison is the best measure of a company's performance"

It's not too bad, you just have to start working out seasonal variation and the like :-P

In reply to JonC: I have not read all 200 posts, but I think they are fab. However I already have an Iphone and would not consider buying an Ipad now as dont think I would get any more out of it than I could get out of my iphone. Although if I did not have an I phone I would deffinatley be buying one :p