January 27, 2010
malicious wares - lemme into your mac.m4a
according to an apple security update, it's possible to hack into a mac by sending someone a malicious sound file. doesn't safari play these files in web pages without asking?
why the iPad is a day late and a dollar short
apple finally entered the tablet PC market today with the announcement of the iPad, and of course, like all apple products, it's being marketed as a revolutionary device
i couldn't agree more that a touch screen tablet is a revolutionary device, i love mine
i've been using a 12" laptop called the HP Tx2 for a few months. it's slick, shiny, beautiful, all rounded and grey-black with a splash of monochrome vector art. it's slim and light, has a dual core processor, 4gb ram, 500gb hard drive, a decent graphics processor that runs top tier studio games fairly well at its native resolution. but here's the kicker:
the Tx2 has a multi-touch screen that pivots 180 degrees and closes facing up as a touch-interactive tablet (or pad)
this one device does everything. at home, i connect it to a 24" display at 1920x1200 with a wireless keyboard and mouse (i also bring the mouse with me when i'm out), its hd playback for tv and movies is perfect, photo and video editing is smooth and attractive, and my web experience is full featured, responsive and crisp, with a choice of any browser and plugins
the last note about browsers is particularly important for me. i like opera, but i'm addicted to firefox addons, so i'm constantly switching between the two. i also use chrome for testing silverlight applets because it's light-weight and it runs plugins in their own threads which makes debugging easier
the screen is also pressure sensitive, and it can detect the tip of a stylus in mid air, in three dimensions, so you can raise or lower the tip of the stylus to control things like pen pressure in adobe illustrator. you don't even need to make physical contact with the screen to draw on it
though, i could rant all day about why i love my device, but how does any of this relate to the ipad? well..
from my perspective, this is a repeat of history. when the iphone came out, i was already using a phone called the htc x7500. it had a 640x480 touch screen, full gps, front and rear video cameras, free and open development, background processes, multiple browsers, and also, it could play flash
but a lot of people were still using crippled motorola flip phones, and the iphone was their first smartphone experience, they were easily convinced that apple had invented features that i had been using for over a year
this is more of the same. apple fans are ranting about the user experience that apple has invented in the ipad, and from my perspective, it's a completely unoriginal and horribly crippled version of my existing hardware
though, the ipad is smaller, thinner, and lighter than my Tx2, but it isn't pocket sized, and i'm really not craving a reduction in my already small 12" screen
i'm also certainly not in a hurry to enter apple's proprietary world and to give up the computing freedoms i enjoy in the Tx2, like choosing my own browser and viewing flash, running any software i please in any configuration i like, supporting every file format and codec on earth, and even having the option of switching operating systems
so while i have no doubt that the ipad sports a few interesting features, from where i'm standing, it's yet another apple device that is at best a cute niche experience, and in truth, it's just a huge step backward
i couldn't agree more that a touch screen tablet is a revolutionary device, i love mine
i've been using a 12" laptop called the HP Tx2 for a few months. it's slick, shiny, beautiful, all rounded and grey-black with a splash of monochrome vector art. it's slim and light, has a dual core processor, 4gb ram, 500gb hard drive, a decent graphics processor that runs top tier studio games fairly well at its native resolution. but here's the kicker:
the Tx2 has a multi-touch screen that pivots 180 degrees and closes facing up as a touch-interactive tablet (or pad)
this one device does everything. at home, i connect it to a 24" display at 1920x1200 with a wireless keyboard and mouse (i also bring the mouse with me when i'm out), its hd playback for tv and movies is perfect, photo and video editing is smooth and attractive, and my web experience is full featured, responsive and crisp, with a choice of any browser and plugins
the last note about browsers is particularly important for me. i like opera, but i'm addicted to firefox addons, so i'm constantly switching between the two. i also use chrome for testing silverlight applets because it's light-weight and it runs plugins in their own threads which makes debugging easier
the screen is also pressure sensitive, and it can detect the tip of a stylus in mid air, in three dimensions, so you can raise or lower the tip of the stylus to control things like pen pressure in adobe illustrator. you don't even need to make physical contact with the screen to draw on it
though, i could rant all day about why i love my device, but how does any of this relate to the ipad? well..
from my perspective, this is a repeat of history. when the iphone came out, i was already using a phone called the htc x7500. it had a 640x480 touch screen, full gps, front and rear video cameras, free and open development, background processes, multiple browsers, and also, it could play flash
but a lot of people were still using crippled motorola flip phones, and the iphone was their first smartphone experience, they were easily convinced that apple had invented features that i had been using for over a year
this is more of the same. apple fans are ranting about the user experience that apple has invented in the ipad, and from my perspective, it's a completely unoriginal and horribly crippled version of my existing hardware
though, the ipad is smaller, thinner, and lighter than my Tx2, but it isn't pocket sized, and i'm really not craving a reduction in my already small 12" screen
wow!!
i'm also certainly not in a hurry to enter apple's proprietary world and to give up the computing freedoms i enjoy in the Tx2, like choosing my own browser and viewing flash, running any software i please in any configuration i like, supporting every file format and codec on earth, and even having the option of switching operating systems
so while i have no doubt that the ipad sports a few interesting features, from where i'm standing, it's yet another apple device that is at best a cute niche experience, and in truth, it's just a huge step backward
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