seems like MS actually kinda had the right idea...
...at least regarding a tablet computer not needing a new custom OS.
I can remember all that time the rumors were flying around about Apple's upcoming tablet computer, and I was thinking "hot damn, at last, a tablet with a letter-size live area which runs OSX, where I can fire up Photoshop, open a full letter-size window and sketch and doodle on it with a stylus the same way I do with a pencil or marker on my dead-tree sketch pad! Alright!" Of course, I probably wouldn't have been able to afford one right away as money's a bit tight these days, but still, knowing that one was available would've been ultra-cool.
So, you can imagine my disappointment -- and slight disgust -- when what Apple gave us was a locked-down tablet running a funky custom OS with a walled-garden App Store subject to capricious censorship by His Steveness, and all the other bullshit that comes with owning an (spit) iPhone... and ludicrously expensive, at that. Mind you, if someone gave me one as a gift, I wouldn't turn it down, but I sure as hell wouldn't break my neck getting down to the shops to buy one.
Just noticing, too, the photo in the link to the Lenovo ThinkPad X220T that Orlowski is reviewing -- wow, a laptop with a screen that pivots, and with stylus input, what a slick idea! Of course, there's the issue of the screen's single attachment point -- or, as some would likely call it, the single attachment point of failure -- where the screen pivots and which likely will see a lot of use and run the chance of breakage, but, still... what a cool-ass idea. As I'm a longtime old Mac freak, I'm not really in the market for a Lenovo -- or any new gear at all right now, sadly -- but I'm still keen to jump over there and read the review just to check it out and see what Orlowski thinks of it.
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an Anonymous Coward sez on 07.02.11 @18:51gmt:
"It wasn't too long after the iphone appeared that the whispers of "wouldn't it be cool if this was bigger...." started and then the ipad was introduced...
I cant help but think that the iphone was a stepping stone to the ipad and the concept of the ipad came first."
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people said that about their iPhones early on. You may also be right about the iPhone being a proof-of-concept -- or a "technology demonstrator" as they say in the aerospace biz -- for the iPad. That said, I'm still royally pissed off about there not being an Apple tablet that runs OSX and normal OSX applications with stylus input. If they'd put that out instead of the frickin' iPad, -- and if I had the couple of thousand bucks to spare -- I'd actually be lined up outside the Apple Store at 4am along with the rest of those crazy-assed people.