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Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled its iPad tablet device. First, the stats: 9.7-inch screen and weighing 1.5 pounds, with 1 GHZ processor, starting at 16GB, 10 hours of battery life, prices ranging from $499 to $829, an unlimited data plan of $30 a month, and some with 3G by AT&T, plus a new iBooks online store.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Jobs has been aggressive on pricing, but the cost is still to high. Ranging from $499 – $899, compared to Amazon’s Kindle at $259, means Apple is still coming into the high end.
You can still get (bulkier form but more power) a Netbook for less than an Ipad.
The real power will be later, when the price drops (and it will have to drop since Apple is using generic components from Taiwan that can be copied into me-too devices). This was the case in the Iphone, and Ipod, which were initially pricey and later cheaper, with early adopter rich yuppies using them and then pretty much everyone as the price dropped dramatically.
The price point for the Ipad (basically $500) means that it will not shake up Hollywood right away. But yes eventually Apple selling a $150 Ipad or someone else taking that price point, means that Hollywood has a threat (cheap, streaming video or cheap sales) and an opportunity (lots of money to be made via mass adoption).
If most people in the US (and globally in the First World) have these devices, you could at much lower cost stream movies to them. Or downloads. It would cannibalize the DVD market, aggressively, and make Blu-Ray less attractive, particularly if the devices can also be networked to home TVs for family viewing.
Barriers: Wifi/3G networks need to be more robust, with better data compression, the device costs too much now for mass market adoption, most Hollywood content is not mass-market but niche stuff, with little perceived value, and lots of piracy.
The latter is important, even when technical details (price, data delivery, etc.) are solved by folks at Apple, AT&T, Sony, etc. the competition is piracy. Apple’s Itunes experience shows that you have to offer consumers convenience AND low price to beat pirates. Which means Hollywood’s days of high margins on low-mass appeal of stuff like “Hostel” are at an end.
I only wish you had been alive in Michelangelo and Davinci’s time so that the world could’ve been treated to your scathing analysis of how their work wasn’t meaningful, credible or profitable.
Oh, and you’d have been dead for 500 years.
I second that emotion. Can I please get back all the seconds of my life that have been wasted reading Whiskey’s posts?
you’re comparing the price of a small kindle to the ipad instead of the comparably sized Kindle DX which runs at 450$, has less memory, less function, and no color screen.
i found the rest of your thoughts to contain the same careful analysis…
It’s a horrible product, so I’m guessing not much.
No USB – No GPS – No upgradeable memory – No Flash – No tethering – No camera.
No buy.
Writer is right!
No floppy drive, no stylus, no tape drive, no dot-matrix printer, no SCSI, no PCMCIA, no propellor.
It is a flop before it came out.
Writer IS right!
USB – this is the standard, de-facto way most of us transfer information from one device to another. The thing that really kills me is that they emphasized photos, but you won’t be able to instantly transfer photos to your iPad unless you have a bluetooth camera.
GPS – It’s a portable machine. It seems GPS just makes sense, especially since they touted their map software.
Flash memory port – A cheap and easy way to expand storage space and transfer files. This would have solved most digital camera transfer issues.
Adobe Flash – Flash video is supposed to become a thing of the past with HTML5. But HTML5 is a few years away. Not offering Flash is just petty politics on Apple’s part.
Camera – A camera would be FORWARD thinking. It wouldn’t be for taking pics of friends but for video conferencing with a program like Skype.
These are major concerns for a lot of people who were considering buying one, not to mention that it uses the iPhone OS instead of regular OSX. Apple has decided to limit you to what Apple offers by making it a closed system with the OS. This isn’t so much a tablet computer as a large iPod Touch.
USB? Standard and de-facto for PC’s and laptops. We live in a world of wireless networks. I use my USB ports so seldom anymore.
GPS? – In twenty years, we are going to look back on this era, and wonder why we were so obsessed with knowing exactly where we were in our own house or our own office or our favorite coffee shop. My iPhone doesn’t have GPS; yet it tells me where I am whenever I need directions to somewhere else. Do I really need to double check with a satellite to make sure I’m in my own living room?
Flash Memory Port? – SEE USB above.
Adobe Flash – You are absolutely correct. It is silly that they don’t support Flash.
Camera – I agree as well. I really like being able to iChat on my laptop – it would be great to be able to do it with the iPad as well.
But I still Writer is wrong to call this a “horrible product”. The Marco and Envoy were horrible products along with the Newton. This is actually a very elegant product, and since about 80% of my job is reading, I will likely buy one. I can’t speak for anyone else, and I completely agree it should support Flash and have a camera. Still though – Writer is very wrong to call this horrible.
Nothing’s going to come between you and your Zune, eh Bill? (And where’s that damn floppy disk go?)
The ipad isn’t immediately a game changer, but if and when it gets netflix, hulu and flash support it definitely might change the landscape yet again for the film/tv industry. Right now its going to have a bigger impact on the publishing industry.
-Ab
It’s not a game changer until they make it wherein you’re able to use products like Microsoft Office, Powerpoint, Final Draft, etc. on it. Otherwise it’s basically an oversized iTouch with a better internet and keyboard.
FreshBrew is absolutely right! I’ve been envying the tiny windows laptops and wondering when Mr. Jobs would totally get us indie filmmakers! I want to use Final Draft, Screenwriter and the Movie Magic suite! I also don’t like paying extra for data access! I guess I’m stuck with my trusty old MacBook Pro when I travel…
“It’s not a game changer until they make it wherein you’re able to use products like Microsoft Office, Powerpoint, Final Draft, etc. on it.”
So…*now* then.
Simple. Every assistant in this town is slacking, busy reading live-blogged iPad updates.
As a self-confessed Apple fanatic I’d sure like one but definitely don’t need one and doubt I’ll buy one. Underwhelming and not at all a game changer like the iPhone was.
I’m an Apple fanatic, too, ever since making the switch about 4 years ago. I’m one of those annoying converts that becomes an evangelist for all things Apple.
But iPad is just thoroughly underwhelming. It’s like an iPhone version of a portable DVD player. Sure, you can watch stuff, but it’s really only for people with ADD or a serious need to stay connected at all times.
I was hoping for much much more. Like the Macbook Air. Not revolutionary because of all its limitations.
Note to Jobs and other such visionaries: To be a game changer, you need to expand on ALL the cutting-edge ideas and technologies. That’s why iPhone and iPod were such hits.
The iPhone was launched into an already well established category – smartphones.
The iPad is an attempt at a market that so far has offered little potential – the tablets. The issue is actually whether they’ll turn this into a mass market. People that have both a smartphone and a laptop computer won’t need this but there’s this mostly untapped category of people who have never been at ease with a computer and the Internet. If Apple can make them go digital, it can get huge.
This isn’t going to affect Hollywood in any way. Movies are always going to be a primarily stay-at-home or theater medium. I don’t know anyone who has watched a movie on an iPhone and say they liked the experience. Since it blocks Flash, that means that there will be no Hulu and other video streams, and on the nets ad-based free content is the answer. The real question will be who can offer the content for the lowest price, and Apple is definitely be on the forefront of that.
I watch plenty of YouTube on my iPhone. Is that not video streaming?
No multi-tasking…nuff said
some bold, forward thinking agency will provide one to EVERY client and EVERY employee to cut down on printed script pages. two pages per side, double sided printing is a step in the right direction (approx 25 pieces of paper per script) but still. Multiply that by hundreds of employees and clients, many of whom read 10, 20, 50 scripts per week, and that’s a LOT of tress we’ll be saving.
you heard it here first.
what a horrible name.
they obviously have no women working with their branding department.
i-pad.
really apple?
instantly calls to mind feminine hygiene products.
launch fail.
Really? Is that what you think every time you hear the word “note pad”?… How awkward for you.
@Whiskey
Who wants to make Blu-ray less attractive? I want to actually own a physical copy of each and every one of my films. Also, streaming quality sucks big-time. Just my .02
I would have to agree with those that are calling this
“underwhelming,” as it could have been so much better. But hey they can add usb ports to the ipad 2.0 and then multitasking to the ipad 3.0, and call it new and revolutionary while still maintaining the too high for most consumer’s price. Just like the iphone shook up the phone industry, maybe this will also lead others to make similar products that are less expensive and more feature oriented, even if they won’t look as good.
It’s simple – for all the companies who thought their business model would would be revolutionized (i.e., NY Times and their subscription), this hardware won’t do it. It’s an oversized, overpriced iPod Touch. Too expensive for this economy, too featureless for anyone who knows tech to care. Many people seem to think there was no such thing as a tablet until Apple came along. Wrong. Buy a magnifying glass for your iPod Touch. Now you have an iPad.
The iPad will be jailbroken in a week. it’s an iPhone OS. Tons of new apps will be created on Cydia and the app store. Final Draft or Final Draft-like apps will exist. MS Office or the like as well. Accessories galore. Webcams, etc.
Sometimes, I just don’t feel like lugging my 15″ MBP around. Personally, I’m stoked. It’s what you write, not what you write on.
Yes, I drank the Apple Kool Aid many years ago.
Gamechanger = yes. But NOT for its technology. Before it ships Apple will use the iPad as leverage to drop TV shows from $1.99 to $.99 per episode. iTunes money is essentially pure profit for networks and at millions of downloads per week a 50% decrease in sale amount is gamechanging. IMO
Being blind, this product is useless to me. Until kindel or iPad has some sort of narration, I’m left in the dark and uninterested — no pun intended!
Actually, Apple has fantastic voice recognition and speech software built in for visually impaired folks — and there are companies who make braille compatible keyboard attachments. If you’re near an Apple store, go in and ask for a demo.
Like other apple products it has accessibility options including voice over screen narration: Accessibility:
Support for playback of closed-captioned content
VoiceOver screen reader
Full-screen zoom magnification
White on black display
Mono audio
As for other comments: GPS is included with the 3G version, so it is available. It’s wider than 4:3, but yes it is annoying it’s not true 720p 16:9, and it is annoying that there is no camera, and hopefully they’ll soon introduce multitasking and Flash (easily added with firmware)
I think most people are missing where Apple is taking this – it’s most definitely a game changer, though most likely not for the film industry. This device is meant to replace a laptop in order to fit in between smartphones and desktop computers not between smartphones and laptops. The idea is that 98% of daily computer usage is either internet, communication, or productivity suite (yes there are word processing and other apps available) all of which can easily be handled by something even as small as an iPhone, but as most people can attest to, it’s really not that enjoyable for any serious browsing, which is where the large screen makes a huge difference.
The iPad (yes it is an awful name… and quite troublesome in Boston I would assume) seems to be a very social and ergonomic device. Something meant to be passed around to share photos, or play a group game of scrabble (how cool would that be!). It’s a coffee table item that’s perfect for when you want to look something up real quick, or grab directions before you head out, but that you can also read the paper on in the morning, or a book before bed. Then further it’s the perfect travel companion, allowing you to watch movies and read books/scripts the entire flight, and then have your e-mail, calendar, and internet with you when you land without needing to bring a big laptop.
I think the integration into our daily routine (including those routines before computers – i.e. reading the newspaper) is what makes it unique. It’s an electronic device meant to free you from the tether of a desk or table and made to fit your lifestyle. Does it have all the features you could ever want? No – but again it doesn’t need to as it can do the majority of tasks that we want to, and for that remaining 3% you have a full fledged computer (most likely a desktop with blu-ray burner, expandability, etc). Only time will tell, but my guess is that Apple saw it right, and the laptop is a dying breed, soon to be replaced by more portable interactive machines like this one.
No more carrying screenplays on airplanes.
I agree with the poster who said this was basically an oversized ipod touch…sure the later versions will have 3G – but it won’t replace your phone.
So think about it – with the iphone apple wasn’t inventing a category – they were simply making a best of breed statement on smartphones – and setting up a new paradigm of app/media delivery with the Itunes App Store.
More to the point – most people already had mobile phones – apple just simply made a better mobile phone
Whereas with iPad Apple has to convince people to buy yet another device to go alongside the Laptop, Mobile Phone, Desktop, Kindle…
This is a much much harder sell. Sure we’ll start seeing them around in a few months but if it can’t replace my laptop or phone then basically – it’s yet another rechargeable toy I have to carry around…
My prediction is that the growth is nothing like as stellar as the iphone. As to the impact on Hollywood itself – interesting – in the sense that it will drive the uptake of faster CPU, higher resolution color screen tablets – (which can then stream movies in the same way that a Kindle can currently get a book)- which in turn will mean more people will want to buy movies that way.
But so much the better – Change is good – especially if it shakes up the inefficiencies of the existing system.
4:3 aspect ration screen sucks ass for movies. No USB? No multi app. running. No camera?!? Weird. It’s got some great stuff too, it could change publishing industry and will have their full support, but it seems to be a transitional device, not a revolutionary one. No camera is a disgrace in this day and age.
Oh yeah, it’s only going to get thinner.
Wait.
Did you just say you want a camera on this thing when people can take HD pics with something you can fit in your pocket? I’d love to see someone holding up a 10″ square to take a picture.
It’s like a big iPhone, only better. No wait, it has no phone. My bad.
It’s like a small iBook, only better. No wait, it doesn’t have half the capabilities of a laptop (or netbook for that matter). My bad again.
It’s like a cumbersome piece of crap in search of a reason for being. Ahh, that’s it!
As a reader alone, the IPad — yes, a dumb name — makes the Kindle look like a stone tablet. Grayscale is great, but it’s not color. Lot of movies made every year — how many are B&W?
I assume that people in Hollywood still have occasion to read now and then.
The techno-geeks will pooh-pooh it, just as they did the iPhone and iPod. Those of us who live in the real world will likely find the new toy more useful. (I somehow imagine that the naysayers here are also the folks who thought Avatar didn’t look very good and would tank big-time. Apple says it might sell two million of the new gadgets in the first year. Wanna bet against they beat that in spades?)
there aren’t enough apple fanboys, even in hollywood, to make this turd of a device a success…like the appletv, it’s just another of a long string of products that apple releases with hype and fanfare and then lets die…iphone and ipod are huge exceptions to the rule
Ipad is not revolutionary.
Potentially, this is however:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIgNfp-MdI